formoso

Forms

formoso (feminine formosa, masculine plural formosos, feminine plural formosas, comparable, comparative mais formoso, superlative o mais formoso or formosíssimo, diminutive formosinho, augmentative formosão, metaphonic)^[1] The medieval forms were fremoso (13th century) and fermoso (14th century), with fremosso and ffremoso.^[2][3] Bluteau (1712–1728) still enters fermoso, ou formoso.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin fōrmōsus (“shapely, beautiful”), written Old Galician-Portuguese fremoso and Old Galician-Portuguese fermoso in the oldest texts.^[5][3][1] Houaiss explains the form with /e/ by dissimilation of the two /o/ sounds and the form with /fre-/ by metathesis; these semi-learned forms were the usual ones until the middle of the 17th century, although the modern form is already found now and then in medieval texts.^[5][3] The modern form is the old word reshaped on the Latin spelling.^[6][1]

The same Latin word is Galician fermoso, Spanish hermoso, Catalan formós and Romanian frumos.^[7][1] In Latin it is formed from fōrma (“shape, beauty”) and -ōsus.^[8][1] Corominas notes that the other Latin word for “beautiful”, pulcher, left no trace in Romance, while this one survived thanks to its link with the noun.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the cantigas fremoso describes a beautiful lady or friend, as in Afonso X's amiga fremosa e ben talhada “a beautiful, well-shaped lady”, and it is also used as an adverb, “beautifully”: tanto a vi fremoso parecer “I saw her look so beautiful”.^[10][11]

Semantic evolution

Medieval prose uses fremoso of people, horses, gardens and miracles alike; the Crónica Geral speaks of hũu muy fremoso miragre “a very fine miracle”.^[10] The spelling formoso won in the 17th and 18th centuries: Feijó (1734) argues at length that formoso and formosura follow Latin forma, and Morais (1813) calls formoso the better spelling and fermoso a variant.^[12][13] Besides physical beauty the word came to mean pleasant, splendid, harmonious in sound and morally pure.^[5][14]

Timeline

• 13th century – fremoso in the cantigas.^[2][3]
• 14th century – fermoso and the occasional formoso.^[5][3]
• c. 1430 – formoso in the Horto do Esposo.^[15]
• 1570 – fermoso still in a private letter.^[16]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau names the island of Formosa (Taiwan) and gives fermoso and formoso as equals.^[17]
• 1734 – Feijó argues for the spelling formoso.^[12]
• 1813 – Morais prefers formoso to fermoso.^[13]

Meanings

Adjective

1. beautiful, handsome, of pleasing form or features.^[5][18][1]
2. Pleasant, delightful: uma formosa tarde de outono.^[5][18]
3. Splendid, magnificent.^[5][18]
4. Perfect, pure, noble.^[5][19]
5. harmonious, pleasant-sounding.^[5][18]

Word family

• formosura
• formosear

Related words

• forma
• Latin fōrmōsus
• Spanish hermoso
• Galician fermoso

Usage notes

Bluteau explains that the Portuguese called the island Ilha Formosa (Taiwan) for the beauty and fertility of its land.^[17]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. fermoso
3. ^ a b c d e Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. formoso
4. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. fermoso
5. ^ 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. formoso
6. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. formoso
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. formosus
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. formōsus
9. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 348
10. ^ a b 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. fremoso
11. ^ Lopes, Graça Videira; Ferreira, Manuel Pedro et al. (2011–), Cantigas Medievais Galego-Portuguesas [online database], Lisboa: Instituto de Estudos Medievais, FCSH/NOVA, https://cantigas.fcsh.unl.pt, p. s.v. fremoso
12. ^ a b Feijó, João de Morais Madureira (1734), Orthographia, ou Arte de escrever, e pronunciar com acerto a lingua portugueza, Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. formoso
13. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 49
14. ^ 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. formoso
15. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. formoso
16. ^ 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. formoso
17. ^ a b Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. formoso
18. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. formoso
19. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 4412