febre

Forms

febre f (plural febres)^[1] The 13th-century texts write fever and febre; the Galician Miragres de Santiago have feuere.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin febris (“fever”), written Old Galician-Portuguese fever and Old Galician-Portuguese febre in the oldest texts.^[2][4][1] Nascentes derives it from the accusative ⟨febrem⟩, not ⟨febrim⟩, through the old form with ⟨v⟩, ⟨b⟩ returning through the medieval wavering between /b/ and /v/.^[5][6]

The same Latin word is Galician febre, Spanish fiebre, Catalan febre, Occitan fèbre, French fièvre and Italian febbre.^[7][8] Corominas regards the Spanish form as semi-learned, the word of physicians, beside the popular calentura.^[9]

The Latin noun goes back to *feɣʷris and to Proto-Indo-European *dʰegʷʰ- (“to burn”), meaning “burning”; its cognate is Ancient Greek τέφρα (téphra, “ashes”).^[10][1] Figueiredo (1899) took it as a metathesis of ⟨ferbis⟩, from ferveō (“to boil”).^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantigas de Santa Maria tell of one who dũa forte fever mui cedo morreu “soon died of a strong fever”, and elsewhere of a fever aguda and a fever mortal; cantiga 235 already writes febre gẽeral “fever all over the body”.^[3][12] The sense is the illness with raised body heat.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The old dictionaries describe fever in the humoral terms of their time: Bluteau as a preternatural heat of the blood and humours spreading from the heart.^[13] Barbosa (1611) has febrezinha “slight fever” and ter febre “to have a fever”.^[14] Morais (1813) distinguishes continuous and intermittent fevers.^[15]

Figurative senses, “great agitation of the mind” and “burning desire” (febre do ouro “gold fever”), are given by Figueiredo and the modern dictionaries.^[11][2][16] Many diseases are named with the word: febre amarela “yellow fever”, febre aftosa “foot-and-mouth disease”, febre tifoide.^[2][1] In the plural, informally, febres is malaria, and Portuguese country people use o febre and a febre for different kinds of fever.^[2][17]

Timeline

• 13th century – fever and febre gẽeral in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[3][12]
• 14th century – Houaiss's date for the spelling febre.^[2]
• c. 1430 – febre in the Horto do Esposo (copied 1390–1437).^[18]
• 1569 – Cardoso glosses febre with Latin febris.^[19]
• 1611 – Barbosa lists febrezinha and ter febre.^[14]
• 1899 – Figueiredo records the figurative senses “exaltation” and “eagerness to possess”.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. (medicine) fever, a rise of body temperature above normal; pirexia: a criança acordou com febre.^[2][16][1]
2. (figurative) A burning desire to have or achieve something: a febre do ouro.^[2][16]
3. (figurative) Great agitation or excitement; exaltation.^[2][16]
4. (figurative) A craze, a passing fashion.^[1][20]
5. (in the plural, informal) Malaria (malária).^[2]

Word family

• febrento
• febrinha
• febre amarela
• febre aftosa
• febre tifoide

Related words

• febril
• febrícula
• febrífugo
• Latin febris
• Galician febre
• Spanish fiebre

Usage notes

Houaiss and Cunha record a separate adjective febre “underweight” (of a coin, lacking its legal weight), first found in 1372, which Houaiss explains as an old divergent form of flébil from Latin flebilis “weak”, probably influenced by French faible;^{[2][4][11][16][21]} Cunha, Figueiredo and Aurélio derive it from the French word, and the REW from the French word through Spanish.^{[2][4][11][16][21]} Viterbo explains moeda febre as the opposite of moeda forte.^[22] The Crónica Troiana uses it for “weak”: molleres mansas et febres “meek and weak women”.^[12]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. febre
3. ^ a b c d 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. fever
4. ^ a b c Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. febre
5. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. febre
6. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 211
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 3230
8. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. febris
9. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 888
10. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ a b c d e Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. 604
12. ^ 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. febre
13. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. febre
14. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. febre
15. ^ Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 8
16. ^ a b c d e f Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. febre
17. ^ Instituto da Lingua Galega, Tesouro do léxico patrimonial galego e portugués (TLPGP), Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, https://ilg.usc.gal/tesouro, p. s.v. febre
18. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. febre
19. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. febre
20. ^ 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. febre
21. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 3362
22. ^ 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. 1, 439