frota

Forms

frota f (plural frotas)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Old French flote (“fleet”), the older form of flotte.^[2][3][1] The French word comes from Old Norse floti (“fleet, raft”).^[2][3][4][5] Orel derives the Old Norse noun from Proto-Germanic *flutōn, from *fleutaną (“to float”).^[6][1] Wiktionary traces the root to *plewd- (“to float, swim, fly”).^[6][1] The 14th-century Old Galician-Portuguese flota keeps the French cluster, which elsewhere became ⟨fr⟩.^[2][3][7]

Bluteau (1712) already took the word from French and said the Normans were the first to use it.^[8] Nascentes (1955), after Diez and Meyer-Lübke, derived it from Latin flūctus (“wave”) through Old Occitan flota, and the original Caldas Aulete gives the same.^{[9][10][11][12]} Silva Bastos called it Germanic or Italian, and Figueiredo Germanic.^{[9][10][11][12]}

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantigas de Santa Maria speak of a king sending out his fleet (quando sa frota ouv' enviada) and of a ruler who should have a fleet at sea to be more feared (ouvesse per mar frota).^[7] A cantiga d'escarnho by Gonçal' Eanes do Vinhal mocks those who go with the fleet and lie down in the hold for fear.^[7][13] The Crónica Troiana writes flota, and the Crónica Geral has hũa flota de gente “a body of people”.^[7]

Semantic evolution

Bluteau noted that while the French word meant a navy, Portuguese frota was a convoy of merchant ships sailing together.^[8][14] Morais (1789) defines it as merchant ships escorted by warships.^[8][14] Vieira (1871–1874) quotes João de Barros on the fleet of Vasco da Gama and of Pedro Álvares Cabral.^[15] The sense “great number of people, crowd” appears in Figueiredo (1899), and the modern sense of a set of vehicles or aircraft belonging to one company or person is in the original Caldas Aulete.^[12][10] Aurélio marks the sense “number of warships sailing together” as old-fashioned.^[16]

Timeline

• 13th century – first records, among them frota in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[2][3][7]
• 14th century – the variant flota.^[2][3]
• c. 1430 – frota in the Horto do Esposo (copied 1390–1437).^[17]
• 1569 – Cardoso glosses frota with Latin classis.^[18]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau derives it from French flotte.^[8]
• 1836 – first record of the diminutive flotilha (Cunha's 4th-edition addenda).^[3]
• 1899 – Figueiredo records the sense “crowd, great quantity”.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. A fleet of warships; a navy.^[2][4][16]
2. A fleet of ships of one country or company or of one kind: frota mercante, frota pesqueira.^[2][16][4]
3. (historical) A convoy of merchant ships escorted by warships.^[19][14]
4. A set of vehicles or aircraft belonging to one company, person or country: uma frota de autocarros.^[2][16][4]
5. (informal) A great number of people or things; a crowd.^[2][4]

Related words

• flotilha
• flutuar
• French flotte
• Spanish flota

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 Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. frota
3. ^ a b c d e f Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. frota
4. ^ a b c d e 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. frota
5. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. flotte
6. ^ a b Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 109
7. ^ a b c d e 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. frota
8. ^ 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. frota
9. ^ 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. 228
10. ^ 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. frota
11. ^ a b Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. frota
12. ^ a b c d Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. 637
13. ^ Universo Cantigas: Glosario da poesía medieval profana galego-portuguesa, A Coruña: Instituto da Lingua e Literatura (ILLA), Universidade da Coruña, https://www.universocantigas.gal, p. s.v. frota
14. ^ 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, 639
15. ^ 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, 780
16. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. frota
17. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. frota
18. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. frota
19. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. frota