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feira

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Etymology and origin of the Portuguese word feira

Confidence
Established
Formation
Inherited
First attested
1200s Cantigas de Santa Maria More words from the 13th century
Inherited from
Latin feria
Ultimate origin
Latin feriae
Etymology tree
inherited borrowed derived
Latin fēriae
Italian ferragosto
Latin fēria
French foire
Italian fiera
Portuguese feira
Spanish feria
German feiern
Derivations
From the same root
Latin fēriātus ← fēriae

Pronunciation

  • Brazil: /ˈfe(j).ɾɐ/, [ˈfe(ɪ̯).ɾɐ][1]
  • Portugal: /ˈfɐj.ɾɐ/[1]
  • Northern, Portugal: /ˈfej.ɾɐ/[1]
  • Central, Portugal: /ˈfej.ɾɐ/[1]

Forms

feira f (plural feiras)[1] Older texts also spell it feyra, the form of a letter of 1741.[1][2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin feria (“feast day, holiday”), written Old Galician-Portuguese feira in the oldest texts.[3][4][1] Classical Latin used the word almost only in the plural, Latin fēriae (“days of rest, holidays”); the singular is a Late Latin development, and in Vulgar Latin it came to mean “market, fair”, because markets were held where people gathered for the great religious feasts.[3][1][5] It is the popular form of the same Latin word that gave the learned féria.[3][1]

The same Latin word is Galician feira, Spanish feria, Catalan fira, French foire and Italian fiera, and through Old French also English fair.[1][6] Corominas considers the Spanish word semi-learned, and García de Diego calls it learned, against the popular Portuguese and Galician word.[5][7]

The Latin word goes back to *fēziās, from Proto-Indo-European *dʰéh₁s (“god”), and is related to fēstus (“festive”).[1] De Vaan derives the Italic words from an s-stem of the parent language meaning “religious gift” or “rite”, and compares Greek θεός (theós, “god”).[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss's first date, 1117, is a place name, Feira.[3] The common noun appears in the 13th century: one of the Cantigas de Santa Maria says that more people came to a shrine que non ven a hũa feira “than come to a fair”, and another speaks of a man who fasted nas feiras u mercava “at the fairs where he traded”.[9][4] The sense was already that of a periodic market.[9]

Semantic evolution

In the medieval texts a feira is a market held on fixed days, often in the plural: the Miragres de Santiago tell of a merchant going a hũas feiras to make a profit with his wares.[9] Viterbo explains that the people, freed from servile work on the great feasts of the saints, gathered at their churches, and trade followed them there.[10]

The weekday names come from the Church's Latin: it counted the days of the week as feriae (secunda feria, tertia feria…), to avoid the pagan names such as Latin diēs Mārtis.[5] Cunha notes that Portuguese is the only Romance language that adopted these names, segunda-feira to sexta-feira, and that they are found from the first texts on; a cantiga already has sesta feira “Friday”.[4][9] Morais's dictionary of 1789 describes both uses, the market place and the word added to the names of the weekdays other than Saturday and Sunday.[11]

Figueiredo (1899) records the figurative sense “uproar, confusion” and, in the Minho, feiras for purchases.[12] Brazilian Portuguese uses feira for the open-air produce market (feira livre) and for the shopping done there, and the modern language for trade shows and book fairs.[3][13]

Timeline

  • 1117 – Feira as a place name.[3]
  • 13th century – feira “fair, market” in the Cantigas de Santa Maria, and sesta feira “Friday”.[9][4]
  • 1416 – the Vida de Santo Aleixo Confessor is the first text in the CTA corpus with the word.[14]
  • 1569 – Cardoso's Portuguese–Latin dictionary renders it emporium, mercatus.[15]
  • 1712–1728 – Bluteau derives it from Latin feria, following Festus on the markets held on Roman holidays.[16]
  • 1789 – Morais defines both the market and the weekday use.[11]
  • 1836 – first record of the derivative feirante “stallholder at a fair”.[4]
  • 1899 – Figueiredo adds the figurative sense “confusion”.[12]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A market held on fixed days in a public place, often in the open air, where goods are sold.[3][17][1]
  2. A fair or show, such as a livestock show or a trade exhibition presenting new products: uma feira de tecnologia.[3][13]
  3. A sale of goods at reduced prices or for charity: feira do livro.[3][17]
  4. (Brazil) The shopping done at the street market: Ainda não fiz a feira desta semana.[3][13]
  5. The second element of the names of the weekdays from Monday to Friday: segunda-feira, quarta-feira.[3][1]
  6. (figurative) Noisy confusion, uproar.[3][18][1]

Word family

  • féria
  • feriado
  • Latin feria
  • Galician feira

Usage notes

Feira livre is in Brazil a weekly street market of fruit, vegetables and fish, in Portugal a fair whose sellers pay no taxes, which is also called feira franca.[3][18] Feira da ladra is a flea market.[18][1]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ NEHiLP – Núcleo de Apoio à Pesquisa em Etimologia e História da Língua Portuguesa, Universidade de São Paulo, DELPo: Dicionário Etimológico da Língua Portuguesa (online database), p. s.v. feira
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. feira
  4. ^ a b c d e Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. feira
  5. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 881
  6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
  7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954)
  8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  9. ^ a b c d e 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. feira
  10. ^ 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, 440
  11. ^ 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
  12. ^ a b Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. s.v. feira
  13. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. feira
  14. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. feira
  15. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. feira
  16. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. feira
  17. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. feira
  18. ^ a b c Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 4229

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Feira.” Etymologically, 15 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/pt/feira. Accessed 16 Nov. 2026.

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