fronteira

Forms

fronteira f (plural fronteiras)^[1] Wiktionary gives the old spelling fronteyra; a letter of 1644 writes fromteira.^[1][2]

Etymology

It is formed from Portuguese fronte + -eira, from fronte “forehead; front”, from Latin frons (“forehead, front”).^{[1][3][4][5][6]} Aurélio, Silva Bastos and Figueiredo derive it instead from the adjective fronteiro “facing, opposite”, recorded from the 13th century, as its feminine used as a noun.^{[7][8][9][10]} Wiktionary calls it a piecewise doublet of frontaria “façade”.^[1]

Houaiss takes it from French frontière, which he dates to about 1213 in the sense “vanguard of an army”, 1292 “fortified place facing the enemy” and the late 14th century “limits of a state's territory”, the last sense perhaps from the adjective frontier (“bordering”) in phrases such as ville frontière (“border town”).^[11][12] His own first Portuguese date, 1152, is older than these French dates.^[11] Meyer-Lübke lists the Portuguese word with the French noun, Occitan frontiera, Catalan frontera and Spanish frontera among the derivatives of the Latin word.^[13] Bluteau (1712–1728) had traced all of them to Late Latin frontaria (“borders”).^[14] Corominas records the Spanish frontero in 1124 and the noun around 1140.^[15]

De Vaan finds no convincing etymology for the Latin noun; comparisons with Celtic and Germanic words for “side” or “steep” are too vague in meaning.^[16][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss's first date, 1152, is taken from Machado's dictionary, which often dates such words from a Latin charter; the text is not given.^[11] In the 13th-century cantigas fronteira is the frontier zone between the Christian and the Muslim lands of the Peninsula, where the fighting took place: Pero da Ponte praises Fernando the Saint as o mui bon rei, que conquis a fronteira “the very good king who conquered the frontier”, and Afonso X mocks a knight who con medo, fugiu da fronteira “fled the frontier in fear”.^[17][18] The Cantigas de Santa Maria tell of a man who morava na fronteira en un castelo guerreiro “lived on the frontier in a castle of war”.^[17]

Semantic evolution

From the medieval war zone the word passed to the line and region where one realm meets another: Cardoso (1569) glosses it with Latin frons aduersa, and Bluteau (1712–1728) with confins and limites.^[19][14] The Cantigas de Santa Maria also have tẽer fronteira “to hold the frontier, to defend”, and Houaiss and Figueiredo record an old military sense, an expedition to defend the borders of a country.^[17][11][9] Feijó (1734) distinguishes fronteira, the bounds of kingdoms facing one another, from frontaria, the front of a house or church.^[20]

The figurative “limit, extreme point” (of decency, of madness) and technical senses in physics, mathematics and linguistics belong to the modern language.^[11][7] In Rio Grande do Sul a Fronteira is the region along the borders with Uruguay and Argentina.^[21]

Timeline

• 1152 – Houaiss's first date, after Machado (probably a Latin charter; the text is not given).^[11]
• 13th century – fronteira in the cantigas of Afonso X and Pero da Ponte and in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[17][18]
• 1569 – Cardoso's Portuguese–Latin dictionary lists fronteira.^[19]
• 1644 – a private letter writes fromteira.^[2]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau derives the word from Late Latin frontaria.^[14]
• 1734 – Feijó separates fronteira from frontaria.^[20]
• 1899 – Figueiredo records the old military sense “expedition to defend the borders”.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. The outer edge of a territory or region where it meets another; a border zone: Havia soldados ao longo de toda a fronteira.^[11][22][1]
2. The area next to that edge: uma vila de fronteira.^[11][7][1]
3. The dividing line between two areas, states or countries; raia, divisa.^[11][4][1]
4. (figurative) A limit, the furthest point of something: Aquilo já passava a fronteira do razoável.^[11][7][1]
5. (figurative) The threshold between two states or situations.^[11][3]
6. (physics) The boundary separating a physical system from its surroundings.^[11][7]
7. (mathematics) The set of boundary points of a set.^[11][3]
8. (historical, military) An expedition to defend the borders of a country.^[11][9]

Word family

• fronteiriço

Related words

• defronte
• frente
• fronte
• fronteiro
• frontaria
• Latin frons
• Spanish frontera
• French frontière

Usage notes

Houaiss lists technical phrases such as fronteira natural, fronteira artificial and fronteira linguística.^[11][1] Bluteau explains the name of the town of Fronteira in the Alentejo from a watchtower that stood fronteira “facing” the Moors.^[14]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b 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. fronteira
3. ^ a b c 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. fronteira
4. ^ a b Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 4494
5. ^ 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. fronteira
6. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 227
7. ^ a b c d e Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. fronteira
8. ^ Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. fronteira
9. ^ a b c d Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. 636
10. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. fronte
11. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. fronteira
12. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. frontière
13. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 3533
14. ^ a b c d Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. fronteira
15. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. frente
16. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
17. ^ a b c d 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. fronteira
18. ^ a b 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. fronteira
19. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. fronteira
20. ^ 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. fronteira
21. ^ Schlee, Aldyr Garcia (2019), Dicionário da Cultura Pampeana Sul-Rio-Grandense, 2 vols., Pelotas: Fructos do Paiz, p. s.v. fronteira
22. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. fronteira