feno

Forms

feno m (plural fenos)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese had feo, fẽo;^[2][1] feno is recorded from the 14th century.^[2][1] A prazo of 1525 still writes feeno.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin fēnum (“hay”), first written Old Galician-Portuguese feo, also with a tilde over the e.^[2][4][1] The modern form keeps the Latin /n/ that Galician-Portuguese normally lost between vowels: Nascentes calls it a remade form, Aurélio a learned one, and Wiktionary suggests a borrowing from or influence of Asturian fenu, perhaps to avoid a clash with the old word for “ugly”, today feio.^[4][5][1] The old form survives in place names such as ⟨Fial⟩ and ⟨Fiais⟩, and the REW records a dialect form ⟨feio⟩ “dry pine needles”.^[6][7]

The same Latin word is Galician ⟨feo⟩, Spanish heno, Catalan fe, French foin and Romanian fân.^[1][8] Italian fieno was influenced by flore.^[7]

The Latin word alternates with faenum.^[9][1] If ⟨fē-⟩ is the original spelling, de Vaan derives it from Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁-no- (“yield”), from the root of “to suckle”; if ⟨fae-⟩ is older, the etymology is unknown.^[9][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss dates feo to the 13th century from Cunha's medieval index.^[2] The modern form appears in the Horto do Esposo, copied between 1390 and 1437, where feno occurs repeatedly.^[10]

Semantic evolution

Since the Latin–Portuguese dictionaries of the 16th century the word means meadow grass cut and dried as fodder.^[11][12] In northern Portugal it also means dry pine needles: Viterbo quotes a prazo of 1525 with sseis ffeixes de feeno “six bundles of feeno” in this sense, and the DLP labels the use as Minhoto.^[3][13] Morais records the proverb traz feno no corno “he carries hay on his horn”, said of a dangerous person, after the hay tied to the horns of oxen that gored.^[14] Botanists use it for sweet vernal grass, feno-de-cheiro.^[2][15]

Timeline

• 13th century – feo.^[2]
• 14th century – feno.^[2]
• 1390–1437 – feno in the Horto do Esposo.^[10]
• 1525 – feeno “dry pine needles” in a prazo of Vairão.^[3]
• 1569 – Cardoso glosses feno as Latin faenum.^[11]
• 1789 – Morais records traz feno no corno.^[16]

Meanings

Noun

1. hay, grass and other plants cut and dried as fodder: Guardaram o feno no palheiro antes da chuva.^[2][5][1]
2. (botany) Sweet vernal grass, Anthoxanthum odoratum, also called feno-de-cheiro.^[2][17]
3. (Portugal, Minho) Dry pine needles, caruma.^[2][13][18]

Word family

• fenar
• enfenar
• feno-grego

Related words

• Latin fēnum
• Galician feo
• Spanish heno

Usage notes

Houaiss also records a rare feno “Finn”, an adjective and noun for the ancient Fenni of Scandinavia, from Latin Fenni, listed from 1881.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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. feno
3. ^ a b c 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, 443
4. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. feno
5. ^ a b Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. feno
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. 213
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. fenum
8. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. fenum
9. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ a b Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. feno
11. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. feno
12. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. feno
13. ^ a b 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. feno
14. ^ Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 12
15. ^ 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. feno
16. ^ 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, 607
17. ^ 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. feno
18. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 4245