fruto

Forms

fruto m (plural frutos)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote fruito, fruyto and fructo;^[2][3] fruto appears in the 14th century.^[2][3] Fruito lasted into the 16th century: Cardoso's dictionary heads the word so in 1569, and Morais (1789) still lists it as a variant.^[4][5] Figueiredo (1899) marks it disused.^[6]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin frūctus (“enjoyment, produce, fruit”), written Old Galician-Portuguese fruito in the oldest texts.^[2][7][1] Nascentes mentions an older Old Galician-Portuguese froito as well.^[8]

The same Latin word is Galician froito, Catalan fruit, French fruit, Italian frutto and Romanian frupt, the last meaning “dairy food”.^[9][10][1]

The Latin noun is formed from fruor (“to enjoy (the produce of)”) with the suffix of action nouns -tus.^[11][1] Wiktionary traces the verb to *bʰruHg- (“to make use of, to enjoy”) and, following de Vaan, explains the loss of the /g/ through the stages *frūgje- and *frūje-.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantigas de Santa Maria of the 13th century write fruito, both for the fruit of the womb, in the angel's greeting pois que bẽeit'é o fruito de ti “since blessed is the fruit of thee”, and for the yield of the beehives.^[3] Houaiss dates fruito, fructo and fruyto to the 13th century and fruto to the 14th.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Both fruito and fruto were used through the 15th and 16th centuries: the Lusíadas still have o doce fruito.^[6][12][13] The medieval meanings were already wide: the produce of the land, the income of an estate (os fruitos das ditas herdades in the Ordenações Afonsinas) and offspring.^[14][3]

Bluteau (1712–1728) defines the fruit as what a tree bears after the flower, and lists frutos da terra for grain and pulses; his book of synonyms gives effect, profit, advantage and gain.^[15] Morais (1789) adds frutos civis, income from rents and interest, and “children”.^[5] Morais already defines it as what the plant produces from the flower, and Vieira (1871) adds that it holds the seeds.^[5][16] Today the botanical sense comes first, and fruto is also used as a synonym of fruta.^[2]

Timeline

• 13th century – fruito in the Cantigas de Santa Maria;^[3][2] fructo and fruyto also recorded.^[3][2]
• 14th century – first record of the spelling fruto.^[2]
• c. 1446 – fruito in Do Dia do Juízo (witness 1431–1446).^[12]
• 1513 – fruto in the Livro dos Mártires.^[13]
• 1569 – Cardoso's dictionary heads the word fruito.^[4]
• 1697 – Pereira's Thesouro heads it Fruto.^[17]
• 1789 – Morais refers fruito to fruto and records frutos civis.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. (botany) A fruit: the organ formed by the ripening of one or more ovaries of a flower, usually holding the seeds.^[2][18]
2. An edible fruit, the same as fruta.^[2][18]
3. Any product of the earth;^[18][19] (in the plural) crops.^[18][19]
4. A child, offspring.^[2][20][1]
5. The result or consequence of something: O êxito foi fruto de muito esforço.^[2][21]
6. Profit, advantage; income from capital or property.^[2][22]
7. (law) Whatever a thing yields periodically without loss of its substance.^[2]

Word family

• pseudofruto
• fruto proibido

Related words

• desfrutar
• frugífero
• fruir
• fruta
• fruteira
• fruteiro
• usufruto
• frutífero
• frutificar
• Latin frūctus
• Galician froito

Usage notes

Fruto proibido, the forbidden fruit of Genesis, is also used for anything desired because it is not allowed.^[21][1] Houaiss's fruto do pecado is a child born of adultery.^[2]

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 l m n o Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. fruto
3. ^ 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. fruito
4. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. fruito
5. ^ a b c d 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, 640
6. ^ a b Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. 637
7. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. fruto
8. ^ 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
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. fructus
10. ^ Estraviz, Isaac Alonso, Dicionário Estraviz, https://estraviz.org, p. s.v. froito
11. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. frūctus
12. ^ a b Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. fruito
13. ^ a b Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. fruto
14. ^ 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, 782
15. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. fruto
16. ^ 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, 784
17. ^ Pereira, Bento (1697), Thesouro da lingoa portuguesa, in the 1697 edition of his Prosodia (1st ed. 1647; CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. fruto
18. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. fruto
19. ^ 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. fruto
20. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. fruto
21. ^ a b Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 4502
22. ^ 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. fruto