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fazenda

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Etymology and origin of the Portuguese word fazenda

Confidence
Established
Formation
Inherited
First attested
1200s the cantigas More words from the 13th century
Inherited from
Latin *facenda
Ultimate origin
Latin faciō

Pronunciation

  • Brazil: /faˈzẽ.dɐ/[1]
  • Portugal: /fɐˈzẽ.dɐ/[1]

Forms

fazenda f (plural fazendas)[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *facenda (“things to be done”), for Latin facienda, the gerundive of faciō (“to do, make”), written Old Galician-Portuguese fazenda in the oldest texts.[2][3][4][1] Nascentes calls the reduced form a Lusitanian one, while Meyer-Lübke already started from it.[4][5] The Latin verb goes back to Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁- (“to put, place”).[6][1]

The same Latin form is Spanish hacienda and Galician facenda, and also Catalan feina, from which Spanish faena was taken.[7][1] Medieval Latin used the word, also spelt fazenda, for the working of land and for an estate.[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The troubadours of the 13th century use mia fazenda for “my situation, my affairs”: Martim Moxa will show his fazenda, and Afonso X speaks of the fazenda of the dean of Cádiz.[9][9][10] One cantiga of the Cancioneiro da Ajuda seems to use it for land a steward farms.[10]

Semantic evolution

Houaiss traces the sense from “occupations” to “affair, business” and then to “wealth, goods”, “rural property”, “merchandise” and “cloth”.[2] Cunha dates both “business” and “wealth” to the 13th century, and the Crónica Troiana already speaks of men of gran fazenda “great wealth”.[3][10] The old language also used it for a deed of arms or a fight: Viterbo and Morais quote fazenda for a duel or battle and for conduct.[11][12]

By 1611 Barbosa has fazenda del Rey “the royal treasury”, and Folqman (1755) records the Conselho da Fazenda, the royal finance court; today the word means “public finances”.[2][13][14] In Brazil the word came to mean a large farm, for crops or for cattle,[2][15] and the old Aulete marks the sense “cloth” as Brazilian.[16] In Trás-os-Montes and the Alentejo it may mean a flock or herd.[17][18] From the Brazilian sense the word passed into English and French, and into Russian as фазенда.[1]

Timeline

  • 13th century – fazenda “situation, affairs” in the cantigas.[9][3]
  • 13th century – afazendado in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.[3]
  • 1416 – the Vida do Cativo Monge Confesso uses the word.[19]
  • 1569 – Cardoso translates it as Latin census “wealth”.[20]
  • 1611 – Barbosa lists fazenda del Rey “the treasury”.[13]
  • 1755 – Folqman separates landed property from merchandise.[14]
  • 1889 – Beaurepaire-Rohan describes the Brazilian fazendas of cattle and of crops.[15]

Meanings

Noun

  1. Goods, possessions, wealth.[2][17]
  2. (economics) Public finances; the ministry or department that manages them.[2][1]
  3. A large farm or ranch, for crops or cattle.[2][21][1]
  4. merchandise, goods for sale.[2][22]
  5. cloth, fabric for clothes.[2][1]
  6. (figurative) Quality, character.[2][23]
  7. (informal, dated) A good-looking woman.[2][17]

Word family

  • fazendeiro
  • fazendista
  • fazendário
  • afazendar-se

Usage notes

The old Aulete quotes the saying a fazenda é fazendo-a “a farm is made by working it”.[16]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. fazenda
  3. ^ a b c d Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. fazenda
  4. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. fazenda
  5. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. s.v. fazenda
  6. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. facienda
  8. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
  9. ^ a b c Lopes, Graça Videira; Ferreira, Manuel Pedro et al. (2011–), Cantigas Medievais Galego-Portuguesas [online database], Lisboa: Instituto de Estudos Medievais, FCSH/NOVA, https://cantigas.fcsh.unl.pt, p. s.v. fazenda
  10. ^ a b c Instituto da Lingua Galega, Dicionario de dicionarios do galego medieval (DDGM), ed. Ernesto González Seoane, Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, https://ilg.usc.gal/ddgm, p. s.v. fazenda
  11. ^ Viterbo, Joaquim de Santa Rosa de (1798–1799), Elucidario das palavras, termos e frases que em Portugal antiguamente se usárão, 2 vols., Lisboa: Simão Thaddeo Ferreira, p. 2, 41
  12. ^ Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 6
  13. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. fazenda
  14. ^ a b Folqman, Carlos (1755), Diccionario portuguez, e latino, Lisboa: Régia Officina Silviana (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. fazenda
  15. ^ a b Beaurepaire-Rohan, Henrique de (1889), Diccionario de vocabulos brazileiros, Rio de Janeiro: Imprensa Nacional, p. s.v. fazenda
  16. ^ a b Aulete, Francisco Júlio Caldas, Dicionário contemporâneo da língua portuguesa (1st ed. 1881), online as Aulete Digital, Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, https://aulete.com.br, p. s.v. fazenda
  17. ^ a b c Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. fazenda
  18. ^ Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. fazenda
  19. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. fazenda
  20. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. fazenda
  21. ^ Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. fazenda
  22. ^ Academia das Ciências de Lisboa, Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, revised online edition (2023–) of the Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa Contemporânea (2001), https://dicionario.acad-ciencias.pt, p. s.v. fazenda
  23. ^ Michaelis: Moderno Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, São Paulo: Melhoramentos (online as Michaelis Dicionário Brasileiro da Língua Portuguesa, https://michaelis.uol.com.br), p. s.v. fazenda

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Fazenda.” Etymologically, 15 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/pt/fazenda. Accessed 16 Nov. 2026.

Last edited on . ·