forno

Forms

forno m (plural fornos, metaphonic)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin furnus (“oven”), written Old Galician-Portuguese forno in the oldest texts.^[2][3][4][1]

The same Latin word is Galician forno, Spanish horno, Catalan forn, French four and Italian forno.^[5][6][1] Corominas notes that it has lived on in every period of Spanish and in all the Romance languages.^[6]

Varro has the older form fornus, and de Vaan takes the stem ⟨forn-⟩ to be the original one, which became ⟨furn-⟩ in part of the speech of Rome.^[7] He traces it to Proto-Italic *χworno- and Proto-Indo-European *gʷʰr̥-no- “heat” or “oven”, with the cognate gorn (“fire”).^[7] Wiktionary derives the root from *gʷʰer- (“warm, hot”) and adds *gъrnъ.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Latin charters of the 9th and 10th centuries already have the Romance word in place names and descriptions of land: uilla de fornos in 897 and forno telleiro “tile kiln” in 907.^[8][2] In a Galician-Portuguese text it first appears in 1228, in a list of property: moynos e fornos e chousas “mills and ovens and enclosures”.^[8] The Cantigas de Santa Maria use it for the baker's oven and for the fiery furnace of Babylon in which Ananias was kept.^[8]

Semantic evolution

Bluteau (1712–1728) describes the oven as a low vault with a single opening, and lists a portable oven and the mouth of the oven.^[9] Morais (1813) widens it to any closed work of stone and lime in which a fire acts on what is put inside, from the baker's oven to the lime kiln.^[10] Figueiredo (1899) has the oven of a kitchen range, the figurative “very hot place” and alto forno, the blast furnace.^[11]

Industrial senses followed: Houaiss records ovens for drying bricks and pottery, electric and microwave ovens.^[2] In Brazil the word also names a large shallow pan for toasting manioc flour, and in Amazonia the giant water lily vitória-régia.^[2][12] The Brazilian phrase acabar de sair do forno “to have just come out of the oven” means to be brand new.^[2] Wiktionary lists furnu in Guinea-Bissau Creole and borrowings in Malayalam and Sinhalese.^[1]

Timeline

• 897 – uilla de fornos in a Latin charter.^[8]
• 1228 – moynos e fornos e chousas in a Galician-Portuguese document.^[8]
• 13th century – first record in Cunha's dates; the Cantigas de Santa Maria have forno.^[3][8]
• 13th century – the derivative fornada is recorded.^[3]
• c. 1446 – forno in the Visão de Túndalo (witness 1431–1446).^[13]
• 1569 – Cardoso's dictionary translates Forno as Latin furnus and clibanus.^[14]
• 1611 – Barbosa lists forno movediço, a portable oven, and fornear, to bake bread.^[15]
• 1813 – Morais describes the oven at length;^[10][3] forneiro and fornilho are first recorded.^[10][3]
• 1899 – Figueiredo records alto forno, the blast furnace.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. An oven: a vaulted structure of brick, stone or metal, heated by burning wood or coal, for baking bread or roasting food.^[2][16]
2. The oven of a kitchen stove, or a separate appliance for roasting, baking or reheating food.^[2][17]
3. A kiln or furnace for firing pottery, bricks, tiles or lime, or for industrial and metallurgical processes.^[2][18]
4. (figurative) A very hot place: Aquela sala é um forno no verão.^[2][19]
5. (Brazil) A wide shallow pan for drying and toasting manioc flour.^[2][12]
6. (Brazil, Amazonia) The giant water lily, vitória-régia.^[2]

Word family

• fornada
• forneiro
• fornilho
• enfurnar
• desenfurnar
• alto-forno

Related words

• fornalha
• Latin furnus
• Galician forno
• Spanish horno

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. forno
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. forno
4. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. forno
5. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. furnus
6. ^ a b Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 396
7. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ a b c d e f 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. forno
9. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. forno
10. ^ a b c Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 50
11. ^ a b Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. 627
12. ^ a b 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. forno
13. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. forno
14. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. forno
15. ^ Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. forno
16. ^ Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. forno
17. ^ 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. forno
18. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 4416
19. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. forno