fogaça

fogaça¹ cake, large loaf

Pronunciation

• Brazil: /foˈɡa.sɐ/^[1]
• Portugal: /fuˈɡa.sɐ/, [fuˈɣa.sɐ]^[1]
• Portugal, Southern: /fuˈɡa.sɐ/^[1]

Forms

fogaça f (plural fogaças)^[1]

Etymology

The word for the cake is inherited from Late Latin focācium (“bread baked in the hearth”), taken over through its plural focācia, which was understood as a feminine singular.^[1][2] Houaiss explains it instead as the feminine of the adjective focācius (“baked in the embers”) used as a noun.^[3] The Latin noun is the adjective used alone, with pānis (“bread”) understood, and is first found in the Vetus Latina.^[1] Isidore of Seville already equates this bread with the one “baked under the ashes and turned over”, as Bluteau and Du Cange quote him.^[4][5]

The same Late Latin word is Galician fogaza, Spanish hogaza, Catalan fogassa, French fouace and Italian focaccia.^[6][1] Corominas dates the Spanish word to 1056.^[7]

Its base is Latin focus (“hearth”), which in Late Latin also took the place of ignis (“fire”).^[8] The origin of the Latin word is unclear: de Vaan rules out a link with fax (“torch”), and Wiktionary reports a connection with Old Armenian բոց (bocʻ, “flame”) and, after Hamp and Matasović, a derivation from Proto-Indo-European *dʰegʷʰ- (“to burn”).^[9][1]

The older dictionaries were unsure of the source: Silva Bastos (1912) asked whether the word was Hebrew, and Figueiredo (1899) gives a Hebrew origin on the authority of P. Caldas.^[10][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss's first date, 1159, is a Latin charter with the Romance form fugazam.^[3] Viterbo quotes such charters at length: in the charter that the monastery of Lorvão gave to Abiul in 1170 the tenant owes as a service unam fugazam of two alqueires of wheat and a capon.^[12] These first records name thin loaves baked under the ashes, which the tenant brought to his lord when the lord came to the holding.^[12] Viterbo stresses that they were a service, not a rent for living on the land.^[12]

Semantic evolution

Viterbo noted in 1798 that the name had outlived the old thing: the fogaças of his day were leavened loaves of much dough, baked in the oven like ordinary bread, and in Porto they were called regueifas.^[12] From dues paid to secular lords they became offerings to churches and monasteries.^[12]

The original Caldas Aulete records the cake offered at saints' festivals and sold at auction, on condition that the buyer give a better one the next year, the girl who carries it on her head in a basket, and a rent in kind under the old charters.^[13] Figueiredo adds an obsolete sense, a gift of food for a christening or a wedding.^[11] Twentieth-century surveys of Portuguese dialects recorded the offering carried on a girl's head in procession and then auctioned for the church, the present that the godparents give to a newly married couple, and, in other places, the senses “a beating” and “a miser”.^[14] In Bahia the word names a formation typical of the diamond-bearing ground.^[3][15]

Timeline

• 1159 – a Latin charter has fugazam, Houaiss's first date.^[3]
• 1170 – the charter of Lorvão for Abiul asks for unam fugazam of two alqueires of wheat.^[12]
• 1217 – a charter of the monastery of Ceiça asks for a capon and a fogaça of two alqueires at Michaelmas.^[12]
• 1311 – a lease of Salzedas fixes the fogaça at an almude of wheat.^[12]
• 15th century – the spelling fogaça in Portuguese texts.^[3]
• 16th century – Cunha's date for the word, under fogo.^[16]
• 1697 – Pereira translates Fogaça by Latin placenta.^[17]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau derives the word from Low Latin focatius, focatia.^[4]
• 1734 – Feijó prescribes fogaça, not fugaça.^[18]
• 1899 – Figueiredo records the cake offered at popular festivals and the girl who carries it.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. A large cake or loaf, in many regions sweet and made with flour, eggs and sugar; a folar.^{[3][2][19][1]}
2. (Portugal, regional) A cake or other gift offered to a chapel or church at a popular festival and then sold at auction (leilão) to pay for the feast.^[20][19][21]
3. (Portugal, regional) The decorated tray with this offering, or the girl who carries it on her head in the procession; a fogaceira.^[20][19]
4. (Brazil, Bahia) A formation typical of diamond-bearing ground (diamante).^[3][15]

fogaça² explosive mine

Pronunciation

• Brazil: /foˈɡa.sɐ/^[1]
• Portugal: /fuˈɡa.sɐ/, [fuˈɣa.sɐ]^[1]
• Portugal, Southern: /fuˈɡa.sɐ/^[1]

Forms

fogaça f (plural fogaças)^[1]

Etymology

The word for the mine is borrowed from French fougasse, in the 16th century the name of an underground explosive mine, an alteration of fougade, today foucade.^[3][2] Houaiss connects the French word with Latin fuga (“flight”).^[3] Wiktionary takes the older French form to be probably borrowed from Italian fogata, from fogare and foga, with a change of suffix.^[3][1] The flatbread of the same name in France comes from Old Occitan fogatza and belongs with the cake.^[1]

The DLP disagrees and derives the military sense too from the Medieval Latin word of the cake.^[19]

Meanings

Noun

1. (military, rare) A land mine hidden in a small pit and charged with stones and bombs, set off by pressure on the ground or by command.^[3][2][19]