festa

Forms

festa f (plural festas, diminutive festinha or festazinha or festim, augmentative festona or festão)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin fēsta (“feast, festival”), written Old Galician-Portuguese festa in the oldest texts.^[2][3][1] The Late Latin noun was originally the plural of Latin fēstum (“festival, feast day”), itself the neuter of the adjective fēstus (“of a holiday, festive”) used as a noun.^[2][4][5]

The Spanish word is fiesta, which Corominas calls a semi-learned descendant of the same Late Latin noun, soon made popular.^[6][7]

De Vaan traces the Latin adjective, together with fēriae (“religious festival”), to Proto-Italic *fēsto- (“holiday”) and further to Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁s-to- (“divine, holy”), the root that also gave Ancient Greek θεός (theós, “god”).^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the 13th century the word already names a religious holiday: the Cantigas de Santa Maria speak of un dia de festa “a feast day” and of a garment worn nas sas festas “on her feasts”, and a cantiga d'escarnho of Alfonso X names the feasts of Our Lord beside Christmas.^[9][10] The Crónica Troiana uses it for the rites offered to the gods.^[9]

Semantic evolution

The medieval word meant a day consecrated to worship and the celebration held on it: the Crónica Geral speaks of the feasts of Pentecost, Epiphany and Saint John.^[9] Cardoso and Pereira gloss it with Latin festum and dies festus.^[11][12] Morais (1813) adds the plural festas for the signs of joy and friendship with which someone or a piece of good news is welcomed.^[13] Figueiredo (1899) records the plural sense “caresses” and boas festas “season's greetings” at Christmas or Easter, and the familiar, ironic “bother, much ado”.^[14]

Today the first sense is a gathering for fun, with music, food and dance;^[2] Houaiss also lists a sense of 1559 for a Hindu festival at the spring equinox.^[2] The noun passed into Kabuverdianu and Tetum as festa, into Malay and Indonesian as pesta, and into Sranan Tongo as fesa.^[1]

Timeline

• 1154 – the earliest date Houaiss gives, taken from Machado's records.^[2]
• 13th century – festa in the Cantigas de Santa Maria and the Crónica Troiana.^[9][3]
• c. 1400 – the earliest text of the CTA corpus with the word, a Flos Sanctorum fragment.^[15]
• 1559 – Houaiss's date for the sense “Hindu spring festival”.^[2]
• 1569 – Cardoso's dictionary glosses festa with Latin festum.^[11]
• 1572 – first record of the verb festejar.^[3]
• 1755 – Folqman lists dar as boas festas “to wish someone a happy feast”.^[16]
• 1858 – first record of festança.^[3]
• 1899 – Figueiredo records the plural festas “caresses”.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. A party: a gathering of people for enjoyment, usually with music, dancing, food and drink: Vamos dar uma festa no sábado.^[2][4][1]
2. A celebration or solemnity, civil or religious, marking an event or a person.^[2][17][18]
3. (religion) A feast of the Church, a holy day; in the Catholic liturgy, a celebration ranked between a solemnity and a memorial.^[4][19][1]
4. (figurative) Joy, rejoicing: A chegada dela foi uma festa.^[2][17]
5. (usually plural) A caress; the excited welcome a dog gives: fazer festas ao gato.^[18][20][1]
6. (informal, ironic) Fuss, trouble, a lot of work.^[4][14]

Word family

• festança
• festeiro
• festejar
• festejo
• festinha

Related words

• festival
• festividade
• festivo
• Latin fēstum
• Spanish fiesta

Usage notes

Boas festas are the greetings exchanged at Christmas and the New Year.^[20][14] A regional survey in Portugal recorded festa for Christmas.^[21]

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 Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. festa
3. ^ a b c d Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. festa
4. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. festa
5. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. festum
6. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 893
7. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. fiesta
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 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. festa
10. ^ Universo Cantigas: Glosario da poesía medieval profana galego-portuguesa, A Coruña: Instituto da Lingua e Literatura (ILLA), Universidade da Coruña, https://www.universocantigas.gal, p. s.v. festa
11. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. festa
12. ^ Pereira, Bento (1697), Thesouro da lingoa portuguesa, in the 1697 edition of his Prosodia (1st ed. 1647; CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. festa
13. ^ Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 17
14. ^ a b c d Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. 610
15. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. festa
16. ^ Folqman, Carlos (1755), Diccionario portuguez, e latino, Lisboa: Régia Officina Silviana (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. festa
17. ^ a b Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 4266
18. ^ 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. festa
19. ^ 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. festa
20. ^ 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. festa
21. ^ 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. festa