fossa

Forms

fossa f (plural fossas)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin fossa (“ditch, trench”), a noun from the feminine past participle of fodiō (“to dig”), with terra (“earth”) understood.^[2][3][1] Houaiss's first date, 1124, comes from Machado.^[2]

The same Latin word is Spanish huesa “grave”, Italian fossa, French fosse, Catalan fossa and Romanian foasă.^[4][5] The Spanish fosa is a learned word, recorded from 1542.^[2][6]

The Latin verb is from Proto-Italic *foþ-i-, from a root meaning “to poke, dig”, with cognates in Hittite, Baltic and Slavic.^[7] Wiktionary gives the root as Proto-Indo-European *bʰedʰh₂-.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The oldest Portuguese sense is “grave”: in the Cantigas de Santa Maria God makes someone rise again from the fossa, and the Crónica Geral speaks of a time of famine when the squares were full of graves and twelve men were put together in one fossa.^[8][9]

Semantic evolution

Cunha dates the sense “ditch” to the 14th century, and Houaiss the sense “cesspit” to the same century; the sense “grave” is now obsolete.^[9][2] Vieira (1871) lists the pit dug in the earth, the grave, the trench dug by vine-growers round the stocks, the anatomical cavity, the vaulted pit for latrine waste and the soldiers' shelter.^[10] In the 19th and 20th centuries geomorphology took up the word for a sunken stretch of the earth's crust, rendering English and German graben.^[2] Brazilian slang has used estar na fossa “to be in the pit” for low spirits since about 1960.^[2]

Timeline

• 1124 – Houaiss's first date, taken from Machado.^[2]
• 13th century – fossa “grave” in the Cantigas de Santa Maria and the Crónica Geral.^[9][8]
• 14th century – the senses “ditch” and “cesspit”.^[9][2]
• 1513 – fossa in the Livro dos Mártires.^[11]
• 1789 – Morais defines it as cova “pit”.^[12]
• 1871 – Vieira lists the anatomical sense and the cesspit.^[10]
• c. 1960 – the Brazilian sense “depression, low spirits”.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A pit or hole in the ground, natural or dug; a cova.^[2][13]
2. (military) A trench dug to shelter soldiers.^[2][14]
3. A cesspit or underground chamber for sewage, in houses without drains;^[2][15] fossa séptica “septic tank”.^[2][15]
4. (anatomy) A depression or cavity of the body: fossas nasais.^[2][13]
5. A dimple in the chin or cheek.^[2][16]
6. (geology) A long depression of the earth's crust, on land or under the sea: fossa submarina, fossa tectônica.^[2][17]
7. (Brazil, informal) Low spirits, depression: estar na fossa.^[2][15]

Related words

• fosso
• fossado
• Latin fossa
• Spanish huesa

Usage notes

Houaiss, Priberam and Wiktionary also record a separate noun fossa for the carnivore of Madagascar (Cryptoprocta ferox), a Malagasy word, fosa, that came through English.^[2][18][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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. fossa
3. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. fossa
4. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 3460
5. ^ Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. huesa
6. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. fossa
7. ^ 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. fodio
8. ^ 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. fossa
9. ^ a b c d Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. fossa
10. ^ a b Vieira, Frei Domingos (1871–1874), Grande Diccionario Portuguez ou Thesouro da lingua portugueza, 5 vols., Porto: Ernesto Chardron e Bartholomeu H. de Moraes, p. 3, 754
11. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. fossa
12. ^ 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, 631
13. ^ a b Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. fossa
14. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 4428
15. ^ a b c 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. fossa
16. ^ 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. fossa
17. ^ 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. fossa
18. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. fossa