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garganta

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Etymology and origin of the Portuguese word garganta

Confidence
Disputed
Formation
Onomatopoeia
First attested
1200s Cantigas de Santa Maria More words from the 13th century

Pronunciation

  • Brazil: /ɡaʁˈɡɐ̃.tɐ/, [ɡaɦˈɡɐ̃.tɐ][1]
  • São-Paulo: /ɡaɾˈɡɐ̃.tɐ/[1]
  • Rio-de-Janeiro: /ɡaʁˈɡɐ̃.tɐ/[1]
  • Caipira: /ɡaɻˈɡɐ̃.tɐ/[1]

Forms

garganta f (plural gargantas)[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote garganta and gargãta, with the tilde for the nasal.[2] A private letter of 1593 still spells it gargãta.[3]

Etymology

The origin of the word is disputed.[4] Houaiss reports the view of several authors that it comes from an onomatopoeic root garg-, and Nascentes, Aurélio and the DLP derive it from that imitative root, which echoes the noise made in the throat when clearing it.[4][5][6][7] Aurélio suggests that it continues Vulgar Latin *gargante, the present participle of a verb *gargare “to make a noise in the throat”.[6]

Nascentes reports that Cortesão took it instead from Late Latin garganta, and this from Ancient Greek γαργαρεών (gargareṓn, “uvula”), extended to the whole throat.[4][8] The Greek word is itself onomatopoeic, with reduplication, and goes with γαργαρίζω (gargarízō, “to gargle”).[1][9] Wiktionary gives a third explanation: a substrate form *gʷr̥h₃gn̥t- (“throat”), related to Proto-Celtic *brāgants (“neck, throat”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʷerh₃- (“to swallow”), with onomatopoeia as the alternative.[1]

The same word is Spanish garganta, which the DLE also derives from the imitative root.[10] Nascentes, after Diez and Meyer-Lübke, compares Old French gargate “throat”.[8] The glossary of the Crónica Geral takes it as probably onomatopoeic, after the REW and Corominas.[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Romance word appears inside Latin charters of Portugal from the 11th century: a document of 1060 has a man held in the stocks and in chains per garganta “by the neck”, and one of 1089 uses illa garganta for a narrow pass in a boundary description.[2] Houaiss dates the first Galician-Portuguese record to the 13th century.[4] The Cantigas de Santa Maria have ena garganta ouv' enfermidade “had an illness in the throat” and a prisoner with handcuffs on his wrists and a chain on his neck (cadẽa na garganta).[2] A satirical cantiga mocks a nobleman who gave no more than three kicks na garganta “in the throat”.[11]

Semantic evolution

From the start the word meant both the throat and the neck: Michaëlis's glossary of the Cancioneiro da Ajuda renders it “neck”.[2] The Crónica Geral has it for the throat (blood coming out of it) and, in the plural, for narrow mountain passes beside vales malos “bad valleys”.[2] The adjective gargantão “gluttonous” is recorded as garganton as early as the 13th century, and Barbosa (1611) still glosses gargantão as a lover of the pleasures of the throat.[12][13]

Bluteau (1712) describes the inner part of the mouth where the oesophagus and windpipe begin, and records the phrases pôr a alguém o cutelo na garganta and pôr a alguém o baraço na garganta “to put the knife, the noose, to someone's throat”.[14] Morais (1813) adds the voice (tem boa garganta), a woman's bosom with the neck, and a narrow pass between hills or the narrow mouth of a river.[15] Figueiredo (1899) lists the joint of the sugar cane, a re-entrant moulding, the upper part of a lamp or lantern and, in slang, a bottle.[16]

Brazilian Portuguese made it an adjective and noun for a boaster, and uses the noun for bragging and lies.[4][7] Technical senses followed in engineering and astronautics, for the narrowest part of a jet or rocket nozzle.[4][17] The word passed into Papiamentu as garganta and into several Malay varieties of eastern Indonesia as gargantang.[1]

Timeline

  • 1060 – a Latin charter of Portugal has the Romance word in per garganta.[2]
  • 1089 – illa garganta “the pass” in another Latin charter.[2]
  • 13th century – first Galician-Portuguese record; the Cantigas de Santa Maria use it for the throat and neck.[4][2]
  • c. 1400 – the Flos Sanctorum fragment of Santiago de Compostela (witness 1380–1425) has garganta.[18]
  • 1569 – Cardoso's dictionary renders it with Latin guttur.[19]
  • 1593 – the spelling gargãta in a private letter.[3]
  • 1611 – Barbosa lists cousa de grande garganta and gargantão.[13]
  • 1712 – Bluteau records pôr o baraço na garganta.[14]
  • 1813 – Morais adds the senses “voice” and “narrow pass”.[15]
  • 1899 – Figueiredo records the slang sense “bottle”.[16]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The throat: the front of the neck, through which food passes from the mouth to the stomach.[4][6][1]
  2. (anatomy) The pharynx and the larynx; the region at the back of the mouth.[4][7][20]
  3. The voice, especially a singer's: Aquela fadista tem uma garganta rara.[4][21]
  4. (figurative, pejorative) Bragging, bravado, lies: Não acredites nele, aquilo é tudo garganta.[4][20]
  5. (geography) A narrow pass between mountains; a gorge, desfiladeiro.[4][1][22]
  6. Any narrow opening or passage.[4][17]
  7. (Brazil) A joint of the sugar cane.[4][22]
  8. (architecture) A concave or re-entrant moulding.[4][22]
  9. Each of the grooves of a pulley in which the ropes run.[4]
  10. The upper part of a lamp, lantern or oil lamp.[4][7]
  11. (astronautics) The narrowest part of the exhaust nozzle of a jet engine or rocket.[4][17]
  12. (nautical) The thinnest part of a mast or topmast.[22]

Adjective

  1. (Brazil, informal) Given to boasting, bragging or lying; as a noun, a braggart.[4][7]

Word family

  • gargantão
  • gargantear
  • gargalo
  • gargarejar
  • gargantilha
  • Spanish garganta

Usage notes

Common phrases are limpar a garganta “to clear one's throat”, molhar a garganta (Brazil, informal) “to have a drink” and não passar pela garganta “to be unbearable”.[4] In Portugal ter muita garganta means to be a braggart.[20]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. garganta
  3. ^ 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. garganta
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. garganta
  5. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. garganta
  6. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. garganta
  7. ^ 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. garganta
  8. ^ 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. 236
  9. ^ Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. γαργαρεών
  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. garganta
  11. ^ 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. garganta
  12. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. gargantão
  13. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. garganta
  14. ^ 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. garganta
  15. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 79
  16. ^ a b Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. 654
  17. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda (1975), Novo dicionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira, p. 699
  18. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. garganta
  19. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. garganta
  20. ^ a b c Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 4611
  21. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. garganta
  22. ^ 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. garganta
Cite this entry

“Garganta.” Etymologically, 15 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/pt/garganta. Accessed 16 Nov. 2026.

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