frade

Forms

frade m (plural frades)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin frāter (“brother; member of a fraternity”), written Old Galician-Portuguese frade in the oldest texts.^[2][1][3] Nascentes explains the loss of the second /r/ by dissimilation, from an older form like Old Spanish fradre, which Old Spanish kept.^[4][5] A Latin charter of 977 already writes the word with the voiced /d/.^[3]

Nascentes points out that in the Iberian Peninsula the Latin word for “brother” gave way to Latin germānus, the source of irmão, so that the Portuguese word must have come in with the language of the Church.^[6] Still, the medieval Spanish poem of Apolonio uses the same Old Spanish form in the sense “brother”.^[6] The Portuguese doublets freire and frei come from Old Occitan fraire, the Occitan form of the same Latin word.^[7][1]

The Latin word is Galician frade, Spanish fraile, Catalan frare, French frère, Italian frate and Romanian frate.^[7][1] It goes back to Proto-Italic *frātēr and Proto-Indo-European *bʰréh₂tēr (“brother”), and is related to Ancient Greek φράτηρ (phrátēr, “clansman”), Old Irish bráthir and English brother.^[8][9][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Before the first vernacular texts the word turns up in Latin charters as a place name: villa de frades in 1059, Houaiss's first date, and capelum de frade in 1162.^[3][2] From the 13th century it is the usual word for a member of a religious order: in the Cantigas de Santa Maria o frade mui felon “the very wicked friar” takes something away again, and Airas Nunez, in a satirical song, looks for a woman nos moesteiros dos frades regrados “in the monasteries of the friars under rule”.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Bluteau (1712–1728) calls frade the name that common people give to the religious of the hooded orders, and says that frey is its contracted form before names.^[10] Morais (1789) limits it to the mendicant orders, as opposed to the monastic ones.^[11] Viterbo adds that many laymen were once nicknamed frade: men who had entered an order and left it, boys dressed as friars by their parents' devotion, and laymen who lived in hospitals or served a religious house.^[12]

Morais records the two irons of a swordsmith's bench, the blank spots of a badly inked page in printing, and a wooden piece of a fringe loom.^[11] Figueiredo (1899) adds the stone post at street corners, the baby's dummy (chupeta), a column abaft the mainmast, the avocet, a variety of bean and a fish.^[13] Brazilian Portuguese gave the word to insects such as the mole cricket and to several fishes, and in Rio Grande do Sul to a tanager.^[2][14] Houaiss also records a maize kernel that does not pop on the embers and, in Minho, a mushroom.^[2]

Timeline

• 977 – a Latin charter has the genitive plural fradrum.^[3]
• 1059 – villa de frades in a Latin charter, Houaiss's first date.^[3][2]
• 1162 – capelum de frade in a Latin document.^[3]
• 1174 – the place name Pumar dus Frades in the cartulary of Caaveiro.^[1]
• 13th century – frade in the Cantigas de Santa Maria and the satirical songs.^[3]
• c. 1430 – frade in the Horto do Esposo (copied 1390–1437).^[15]
• 1569 – Cardoso translates frade by Latin monacus.^[16]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau notes the contracted form frey.^[10]
• 1789 – Morais records the friar of a mendicant order and the printing sense.^[11]
• 1899 – Figueiredo records the stone post at street corners and the baby's dummy.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. A friar or monk: a man who belongs to a religious order, especially a mendicant one; frei.^{[2][17][18][1]}
2. A stone post at a street corner or at the entrance of a lane, to keep vehicles off; a bollard.^[19][20][17]
3. (printing) A part of a printed sheet left blank or pale for lack of ink.^[2][19]
4. (nautical) A column abaft the mainmast.^[2][20] (Brazil) a hole in the bow through which the cables are turned.^[2][20]
5. (Brazil) The mole cricket, grilo-toupeira, and other insects.^[2][20]
6. Any of several fishes, among them the French angelfish.^[2][1]
7. (informal) A grain of maize that does not pop when roasted on the embers.^[2]
8. (Minho, informal) A mushroom (cogumelo).^[2][21]

Word family

• confrade
• feijão-frade
• fradaço
• fradalhão
• fradaria
• fradesco
• fradinho
• fradépio

Related words

• fraternal
• fraternidade
• fraterno
• frei
• freire
• Galician frade
• Spanish fraile

Usage notes

The feminine counterpart is freira.^[18] Houaiss and Aurélio also list frade as a short form of frade-de-pedra, which Aurélio explains as a euphemism for the phallus, and Houaiss as a short form of sanhaço-frade, a tanager of Rio Grande do Sul.^[2][18][14]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. frade
3. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. frade
4. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. frade
5. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. frater
6. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 224
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 3485
8. ^ 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. frāter
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. frāter
10. ^ 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. frade
11. ^ a b c 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, 632
12. ^ Viterbo, Joaquim de Santa Rosa de (1798–1799), Elucidario das palavras, termos e frases que em Portugal antiguamente se usárão, 2 vols., Lisboa: Simão Thaddeo Ferreira, p. 1, 478
13. ^ a b Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. 630
14. ^ a b Schlee, Aldyr Garcia (2019), Dicionário da Cultura Pampeana Sul-Rio-Grandense, 2 vols., Pelotas: Fructos do Paiz, p. s.v. frade
15. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. frade
16. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. frade
17. ^ a b 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. frade
18. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. frade
19. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. frade
20. ^ a b c d 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. frade
21. ^ 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. frade