feio

Forms

feio (feminine feia, masculine plural feios, feminine plural feias, comparable, comparative mais feio, superlative o mais feio or feiíssimo, diminutive feiinho, augmentative feião)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote feo, and the 15th century also feyo.^[2][3][4] Morais in 1789 judged feio the better spelling, but noted that usage still wanted feo.^[5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin foedus (“foul, hideous”), written Old Galician-Portuguese feo in the oldest texts.^[2][3][1][6] The same Latin word is Galician feo, Spanish feo, Old Spanish hedo, Asturian feu and Logudorese feu; it survived only in Spain, Portugal, Sardinia and Corsica.^[7][8][1] The Spanish word is recorded from about 1140.^[9]

De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *fo(j)iþo- (“afraid”) and connects the adjective with the Indo-European verb for being afraid, continued in Sanskrit and Baltic.^[10] Wiktionary gives *foiðos, from *bʰeyh₂- (“to frighten; to be afraid”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

A Latin charter of 1162 already has Feo as a surname (hereditate que fuit de petro feo).^[4][2] As an adjective it appears in the 13th century: the Cantigas de Santa Maria have tan feo come estruz “as ugly as an ostrich” and say that the Virgin can turn ugly things beautiful (ben pod' as cousas feas fremosas tornar).^[4] The sense was already “lacking beauty, unpleasant to see”.^[4]

Semantic evolution

Medieval prose used the word for the ugly as against the handsome, as in the Crónica Troiana pair feo ou aposto, and for frightful sights, such as the masks that scared the horses in the Miragres de Santiago.^[4] Figueiredo in 1899 adds the moral sense “opposed to moral beauty, indecent” and records “harmful” and “toilsome” as disused.^[11]

Modern dictionaries add threatening or dangerous situations, nasty weather, and frightening things.^[2][12][13] In popular speech o feio is the devil.^[12] In the centre and south of Brazil the adjective also means lean, of animals.^[14] Brazilian usage made an adverb of it, in phrases such as errar feio “to make a bad mistake” and fazer feio “to make a poor showing”.^[15][1]

Timeline

• 1162 – Feo as a surname in a Latin charter.^[4][2]
• 13th century – feo in the Cantigas de Santa Maria and in the songs of mockery.^[4]
• 14th century – first record of fealdade and desfear.^[3]
• 15th century – the spelling feyo.^[3]
• 1500 – first record of afear.^[3]
• 1789 – Morais prefers the spelling feio to feo.^[5]
• 20th century – feiura and feioso.^[3]

Meanings

Adjective

1. ugly: unpleasant to look at, lacking beauty; misshapen.^[2][16][1]
2. (figurative) Shameful, base, indecent (indecoroso), morally wrong.^[2][16][1]
3. (figurative) Hard to bear; grave, dangerous (of a situation).^[2][12]
4. Frightening, menacing.^[16][13]
5. Of the weather: overcast or rainy.^[12][17]
6. (Brazil, regional) Lean, thin, of animals.^[14]

Noun

1. An ugly person; something ugly.^[12][1]
2. (popular) The devil.^[12]

Adverb

1. Badly, severely, very much (of a bad outcome): errar feio.^[15][1]

Word family

• afear
• desfear
• enfear
• feioso
• feiura

Related words

• fealdade
• Latin foedus
• Galician feo

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. feio
3. ^ a b c d e f Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. feio
4. ^ a b c d e f g 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. feo
5. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1789), Diccionario da lingua portugueza composto pelo padre D. Rafael Bluteau, reformado, e accrescentado, 2 vols., Lisboa: Simão Thaddeo Ferreira, p. 1, 605
6. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. feio
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 3406
8. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. foedus
9. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. feo
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. ^ Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. 605
12. ^ a b c d e f 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. feio
13. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. feio
14. ^ a b 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. feio
15. ^ a b Schlee, Aldyr Garcia (2019), Dicionário da Cultura Pampeana Sul-Rio-Grandense, 2 vols., Pelotas: Fructos do Paiz, p. s.v. feio
16. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. feio
17. ^ 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. feio