filho

Forms

filho m (plural filhos, feminine filha, feminine plural filhas, diminutive filhinho, augmentative filhão)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin fīlius (“son”), written Old Galician-Portuguese filho in the oldest texts.^[2][3][1] Old Latin had fīlios.^[1]

The same Latin word is Galician fillo, Spanish hijo, Catalan fill, French fils, Italian figlio and Romanian fiu.^[1][4]

The Latin word continues *fīlios, which de Vaan traces to an Indo-European adjective in -l- meaning “suckling, child”.^[5][1] Wiktionary reconstructs it as Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁y-li-os (“sucker”), from the root *dʰeh₁(y)- (“to suck”), the root also of Latin fēmina, fellō (“to suck”) and fētus.^[1] The DHLF notes that the word first meant a child being nursed and only later replaced the Indo-European word for “son”, which may have been struck by a taboo.^[6] Figueiredo had already linked it, with some doubt, to the Latin verb and to a Sanskrit root “to suck”.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss and Cunha date the word to the 13th century.^[2][3] It is in the Cancioneiro da Ajuda and in the cantigas d'amigo, where filho d'algo “son of somebody” means a nobleman: Madre, passou per aqui un filho d'algo “Mother, a nobleman passed by here”.^[8][9]

Semantic evolution

Besides the son of a father and mother, the medieval filho d'algo meant the same as fidalgo “nobleman”;^[2][9] Houaiss dates the phrase to the 14th century.^[2][9] Barbosa (1611) lists filho bastardo and filho legitimo.^[10] Morais (1789) adds the young of animals, a work as the “son” of its author's wit, the shoot of a tree, and a native of a place, as filho de Lisboa in the Lusíadas.^[11] Today it also means a person in relation to God or to the school that formed them, and is used as a term of endearment.^[12][2] In Brazil filho is also a small drum played in samba and batuque.^[2][12]

The word lives on in the Portuguese-based creoles: Kabuverdianu and Guinea-Bissau Creole fidju, Macanese filo.^[1]

Timeline

• 13th century – first records.^[2][3]
• 14th century – filho d'algo “nobleman”.^[2]
• 1380–1425 – the Flos Sanctorum fragment of Santiago is the oldest CTA text with the word.^[13]
• 1569 – Cardoso translates filho as filius and gnatus.^[14]
• 1611 – Barbosa lists filho bastardo and filho legitimo.^[10]
• 1789 – Morais records the senses “shoot of a tree” and “native of a place”.^[11]
• 1813 – first record of the derivative filhote.^[3]
• 1899 – Figueiredo connects Latin filius with a root “to suck”.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. son: a male child in relation to his parents.^[2][12][1]
2. A child of either sex: O casal tem dois filhos, um rapaz e uma rapariga.^[15][1]
3. A descendant; in the plural, the descendants of a people or family.^[2][15]
4. A native of a country, region or town: um filho do Minho.^[2][12]
5. (figurative) A product or consequence; a follower of a doctrine or a person formed by an institution.^[2][12]
6. A person in relation to God.^[12][15]
7. A term of endearment or, ironically, of condescension.^[12][16][1]
8. The young of an animal.^[2]
9. A shoot or bud of a plant.^[2][12]
10. (Brazil, music) A small drum used in samba and batuque.^[2][12]
11. (Christianity, capitalised) The Son, the second person of the Trinity.^[2][16]

Adjective

1. Resulting or proceeding from something: uma decisão filha do medo.^[2][16]

Word family

• filhinho
• filhão
• filhote
• filharada
• afilhado
• perfilhar

Related words

• filiação
• filial
• filiar
• fidalgo
• Latin fīlius
• Galician fillo
• Spanish hijo

Usage notes

Filho is used after a name to distinguish a son from his father of the same name;^[17] Nascentes cites Leite de Vasconcelos, who considered the custom an imitation of French.^[17] Phrases include filho de criação, a child raised by someone without adoption, and filho de leite, a child in relation to the wet nurse who suckled it.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. filho
3. ^ a b c d Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. filho
4. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. filius
5. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. fīlius
6. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. fils
7. ^ a b Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. s.v. filho
8. ^ 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. filho
9. ^ a b c 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. filho
10. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. filho
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, 616
12. ^ a b c d e f g h i Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. filho
13. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. filho
14. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. filho
15. ^ a b c 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. filho
16. ^ a b c Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 4297
17. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1952), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 2: Nomes próprios, Rio de Janeiro, p. s.v. filho