fidalgo

Forms

fidalgo m (plural fidalgos, feminine fidalga, feminine plural fidalgas)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese texts have both the contracted fidalgo and the full phrase fillo dalgo or filho dalgo.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is formed from Portuguese filho (“son”) + de (“of”) + algo (“something”), a contraction of the phrase Old Galician-Portuguese fillo dalgo, literally “son of something”.^[4][3][1] In the old language the word for “something” also meant “wealth, property”, so a son of something was at first a man of means, as opposed to the common people with nothing of their own.^[5][1] Houaiss compares the Spanish word, recorded in 1197, earlier Old Spanish fijo d'algo, which first meant a well-off person.^[4] The same formation is Spanish hidalgo, older Old Spanish fidalgo.^[6][1]

The loss of /ʎ/ in the contracted form is put down to dissimilation by Cornu and to the weak stress of the first word by Nunes.^[5] The manuscript of the Crónica Geral alternates the contracted form with the full phrase, from which it comes by syncope.^[2] Following Castro, Corominas sees in the phrase a semantic calque of Arabic; the editor of the Crónica Geral glossary rejects as absurd both a derivation of the second word from an Arabic word and Machado's Vulgar Latin *feudalicus and Vulgar Latin *fidaticus.^[2] Bluteau already took the word from the words for “son” and “something”, and mentioned others who derived it from Latin fidēs (“faith”).^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

A Latin text of 1263 in the Portugaliae Monumenta Historica already speaks of clerici et scutiferi fidalgos “clerics and squires who are noblemen”, and in 1270 a Galician-Portuguese document has nen a dedes a fidalgo “nor give it to a nobleman”.^[2] The Cantigas de Santa Maria call a knight fidalg'escudeyro, a squire of noble birth.^[2] In these records the word means a man of noble birth, as noun and adjective.^[2][8]

Semantic evolution

The word was at first invariable: old texts write molher fidalgo “noblewoman”, and the feminine fidalga was formed later by analogy.^[5] In medieval Portugal the squires and knights of noble birth were the fidalgos of their time, Bluteau writes.^[7] Morais (1789) defines the fidalgo as a nobleman with the privilege of fidalguia, obtained when the king had his name written in the royal books.^[9] The old Caldas Aulete lists ranks such as fidalgo de solar, fidalgo de linhagem and fidalgo dos quatro costados, whose four grandparents were all noble.^[10]

From nobility the adjective passed to generous, liberal conduct, a sense recorded by Silva Bastos and Figueiredo.^[11][12][13] Pejorative senses followed: a person who lives on his income, well dressed, without working, and an arrogant, pretentious one.^[4][13][14] In Portugal the adjective is used popularly of a fussy eater.^[14][15][16] In Brazil it names several fishes.^[4][12][13] Fidalgo is also a surname, originally a nickname.^[17]

Timeline

• 1263 – fidalgos in a Latin text of the Portugaliae Monumenta Historica.^[2]
• 1270 – nen a dedes a fidalgo in a Galician-Portuguese document.^[2]
• 1273 – the full phrase filius de algo in a Latin law text.^[5]
• 14th century – the uncontracted spelling fillo dalgo.^[4]
• c. 1430 – fidalgo in the Horto do Esposo (witness 1390–1437).^[18]
• 1537 – fidalgos in a private letter.^[19]
• 1569 – Cardoso renders Fidalgo by Latin patritius and generosus.^[20]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau derives the word from filho and algo.^[7]
• 1789 – Morais defines the rank of fidalgo and the privileges of fidalguia.^[9]
• 1899 – Figueiredo records the name of a fish of northern Brazil.^[12]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of or belonging to the nobility or to a nobleman; noble.^[4][13][14]
2. generous, gracious, showing nobility of spirit: uma recepção fidalga.^[4][13][21]
3. (Portugal, popular) Fussy, choosy, especially about food.^[14][15]

Noun

1. A nobleman, a person with titles of nobility inherited or granted by the king; aristocrata.^[4][13][14]
2. (pejorative) An arrogant, pretentious person.^[4]
3. (pejorative, informal) A person who lives like a noble without being one, or on his income without working.^[4][13][15]
4. (Brazil, ichthyology) Any of several fishes, such as a catfish of the Paraná basin (Megalonema platanus) and Calophysus macropterus; also a shark (Carcharhinus obscurus).^[4][13]

Word family

• fidalguia
• afidalgar
• afidalgado
• fidalgote
• fidalguete

Related words

• filho
• algo
• Spanish hidalgo

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. fidalgo
3. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. fidalgo
4. ^ 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. fidalgo
5. ^ a b c d Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. s.v. fidalgo
6. ^ Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. hidalgo
7. ^ a b c Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. fidalgo
8. ^ 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. fidalgo
9. ^ 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, 613
10. ^ 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. fidalgo
11. ^ Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. fidalgo
12. ^ a b c Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. 612
13. ^ a b c d e f g h Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. fidalgo
14. ^ a b c d e 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. fidalgo
15. ^ a b c Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 4281
16. ^ 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. fidalgo
17. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1952), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 2: Nomes próprios, Rio de Janeiro, p. 383
18. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. fidalgo
19. ^ CLUL (ed.) (2014), P.S. Post Scriptum: Arquivo Digital de Escrita Quotidiana em Portugal e Espanha na Época Moderna, Lisboa: Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, http://ps.clul.ul.pt, p. s.v. fidalgo
20. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. fidalgo
21. ^ 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. fidalgo