gêmeo

Forms

gêmeo (feminine gêmea, masculine plural gêmeos, feminine plural gêmeas)^[1] The European spelling is gémeo, the Brazilian gêmeo.^[1][2] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote gemẽo.^[1] Bluteau and Morais head the word gémeo.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin geminus (“twin-born, twin; double”), written Old Galician-Portuguese gemẽo in the old language.^[5][6][1][7] The learned doublet is gêmino.^[5][1]

The Latin word also gave Romanian geamăn, and the REW lists the Portuguese word among its outcomes.^[8][1] French jumeau, Italian gemello and Spanish gemelo come from the diminutive Latin gemellus, which replaced the simple word in those languages.^[9][10][1]

De Vaan traces the Latin word to Proto-Italic *jemno- (“paired”), from Proto-Indo-European *iemH-no- (“paired, connected”), and compares Old Irish emon (“twin”).^[11] Wiktionary adds that the ⟨g-⟩ may have come by analogy from gignō (“to beget”) and genus.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss and Cunha date the word to the 13th century.^[5][6] In the prose of the Horto do Esposo, in a manuscript copied between 1390 and 1437, it is written gemeo.^[12]

Semantic evolution

The first sense is “twin”, a child born of the same birth as another: Cardoso glosses Gemeo with Latin gemellus in 1569, and Bluteau gives phrases such as irmão gémeo “twin brother”.^[13][3] Vieira quotes the word from Barros's Clarimundo, for two knights who looked alike in body and arms, and records the plural Gémeos for the sign of the zodiac.^[14]

From “twin” came “identical, alike” and, in anatomy, the name of the two paired muscles of the calf, which Vieira already records.^[14][5] Later senses are the botanical “growing on the same stalk”, “forming a matching pair”, and the figurative alma gêmea “soul mate”.^[5][7] In Brazil the noun also names a measure, the span from the tip of the thumb to that of the forefinger.^[5][7]

Timeline

• 13th century – first record.^[5][6]
• c. 1430 – gemeo in the Horto do Esposo (copied 1390–1437).^[12]
• 1569 – Cardoso glosses Gemeo with Latin gemellus.^[13]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau heads the word gémeo, “one of the children born of the same womb at the same time”.^[3]
• 1789 – Morais defines gémeo as born together with another.^[4]
• 1871–1874 – Vieira records the zodiac sign and the anatomical sense.^[14]
• 1881 – first records of gemelo and geminação.^[6]
• 1899 – Figueiredo gives the plural as the name of the zodiac constellation.^[15]

Meanings

Adjective

1. twin, born of the same birth as another: duas irmãs gêmeas.^[5][7][1]
2. (botany) Of fruits: growing on the same stalk.^[5][16]
3. identical, very like another; having great affinity (afinidade): alma gêmea “soul mate”.^[5][7]
4. Of things: alike and forming a matching pair or set: prédios gêmeos.^[5][7]
5. (anatomy) Of each of the paired muscles of the calf and of the buttocks.^[5][16]

Noun

1. A twin.^[5][1] Gêmeos verdadeiros and gêmeos falsos, identical and fraternal twins.^[5][16][1]
2. (anatomy) Each of the two muscles of the calf, the gastrocnêmio.^[2][1]
3. (Brazil) The distance from the tip of the thumb to that of the forefinger, both spread as far apart as possible.^[5][7]
4. (in the plural, capitalised) Gêmeos, Gemini, the third constellation and sign of the zodiac.^[5][15]

Related words

• gêmino
• gemelo
• geminar
• Latin geminus

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. gémeo
3. ^ a b c Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. gémeo
4. ^ a b 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, 656
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. gêmeo
6. ^ a b c d Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. geminar
7. ^ a b c d e f g Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. gêmeo
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. jumeau
10. ^ 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. gemelo
11. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
12. ^ a b Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. gemeo
13. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. gemeo
14. ^ a b c 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, 848
15. ^ a b Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. 660
16. ^ a b c Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 4649