figo

Forms

figo m (plural figos)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin fīcus (“fig tree; fig”), written Old Galician-Portuguese figo in the oldest texts.^[2][1][3] The Latin noun was feminine, and Nascentes explains the Portuguese masculine by its ending, the usual masculine one.^[3] The same Latin word is Galician figo, Spanish higo, Italian fico, Sardinian figu and Aromanian fic; French figue was taken from Old Occitan figa.^[4][5]

The Latin word is a loan from another Mediterranean language, as are Ancient Greek σῦκον (sûkon) (Boeotian τῦκον (tûkon)) and Old Armenian թուզ (tʻuz); de Vaan thinks it entered pre-Latin with an initial dental fricative.^[6][7] Wiktionary also mentions a possible Semitic source.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantigas de Santa Maria use the fig as a measure of worthlessness: enemies who did not value the defenders “at two figs” (nonos preçaron dous figos), and non val un mui mal figo “it is not worth a rotten fig”.^[9] Johan de Gaia offers a temporão figo maduro, an early ripe fig, in a cantiga of escarnho.^[9][10]

Semantic evolution

Barbosa (1611) names kinds of fig: figo lampo or temporão, the early fig, figo verde and figo passado, the dried fig.^[11] Morais (1789) adds that in India figo means the banana, and Silva Bastos records the same for East Africa.^[12][13] The word was extended to other fruits that look like it, such as those of the prickly pear and some palms, and in Brazil to the tree Pouteria ramiflora.^[2][14][1] Figuratively a figo is anything crushed or shrivelled, and figo passado a very thin, wrinkled person.^[2][15] Like Latin ficus, which also named an ulcer of the anus, the Portuguese word names an ulcer or growth of the genital or anal region.^[2][16][17]

Timeline

• 13th century – figos in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[9][2]
• c. 1500 – figo in the Vida de Santo Agostinho.^[18]
• 1611 – Barbosa lists figo lampo, temporão and passado.^[11]
• 1789 – Morais records the Indian sense “banana”.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. A fig, the fleshy fruit of the figueira.^[2][16][1]
2. The fruit of other plants resembling it, such as the prickly pear (figueira-da-índia).^[2][14]
3. (Brazil) The tree Pouteria ramiflora and its fruit; fruta-de-manteiga.^[2][16][1]
4. (informal) Something crushed, crumpled or ruined: Deixou o bolo num figo.^[2][15]
5. (medicine, informal) An ulcer or growth of the anus or genitals.^[2][16][15]
6. (veterinary) A fleshy growth on the frog of a horse's hoof.^[14][15]

Word family

• figueira

Related words

• figa
• Latin fīcus
• Spanish higo

Usage notes

The proverb em tempo de figos não há amigos “in fig time there are no friends” says that people forget their friends when times are good.^[19] In regional speech of Portugal and Brazil figo is also a reduced form of fígado “liver”.^[20][15] Figueiredo (1899) records a separate, obsolete figo “son”, from Spanish hijo.^[21]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. figo
3. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 215
4. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 3281
5. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 358
6. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. fīcus
8. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. ficus
9. ^ a b c 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. figo
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. figo
11. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. figo
12. ^ 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, 614
13. ^ Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. figo
14. ^ a b c Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. figo
15. ^ a b c d e 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. figo
16. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. figo
17. ^ du Cange, Charles du Fresne, et al. (1883–1887), Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, augmented ed. by Léopold Favre, Niort: L. Favre, p. s.v. ficus
18. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. figo
19. ^ 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. figo
20. ^ 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. figo
21. ^ Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. 613