gola

Forms

gola f (plural golas)^[1] Morais refers gola to the spelling golla, which Bluteau uses for the gorge of a bastion.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin gula (“throat, gullet”).^[4][5][6][7] Wiktionary gives a medieval Old Galician-Portuguese gola and calls the word a doublet of the learned gula.^[1] Nascentes reports that Adolfo Coelho and Nunes derived it instead from colla, the plural of collum (“neck”), and that Constâncio took the sense “ring” from Arabic.^[8] The inherited goela “throat” goes back to a diminutive of the Latin word.^[9]

The same Latin noun is Romanian gură (“mouth”), Italian gola, French gueule, Catalan gola and Spanish gola.^[10] Corominas considers the Spanish word foreign in most of its senses, a borrowing from Catalan, Gallo-Romance or Italian.^[11]

De Vaan finds the traditional reconstruction of the Latin noun unworkable; the LIV posits a root Proto-Indo-European *gʷel-, but the root may be onomatopoeic, and the Latin, Armenian and Slavic words may have arisen separately.^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The noun first appears in the dictionaries: Pereira in 1697 glosses it with the Latin gula, and Bluteau, whose dictionary Houaiss gives as the first record, defines it as the iron gorget worn by the man-at-arms over the breastplate, and also as “throat”.^[13][4][14]

Semantic evolution

Morais repeats Bluteau's two senses in 1789.^[15] Cunha's first date for the sense “collar” is 1813, and Vieira in 1871 gives the part of a garment round the neck, a moulding in architecture and part of a trammel net.^[5][16] The modern dictionaries add the gorge of a fortification and several nautical senses.^[4][17]

In Beira, Portugal, the word names an eddy in the pools of rivers, and in the Azores and Trás-os-Montes it is the same as goela.^[18][19] In north-eastern Brazil and Amazonia it names small birds of the genus Sporophila.^[4] The word passed into Konkani.^[1]

Timeline

• 1697 – Pereira's Thesouro glosses gola with the Latin gula.^[13]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau defines it as the armour for the neck and as “throat”;^[14][4] Houaiss dates the word from his dictionary, to 1713.^[14][4]
• 1813 – Cunha's first date for the sense “collar”.^[5]
• 1871 – Vieira records the senses in dress, architecture and fishing.^[16]

Meanings

Noun

1. The part of a garment that goes round or lies against the neck; a collar: gola rulê “roll neck”.^[4][7][1]
2. (architecture) A cyma, a moulding with one concave and one convex curve; talão.^[4][17][1]
3. (fortification) The gorge, the space between the ends of the sides of a salient angle.^[4][20]
4. (nautical) An iron ring on the capstan that holds the cable for hauling; a metal piece reinforcing an opening; the collar of a sailor's uniform.^[4][17]
5. The groove round the rim of a pulley wheel.^[19][20]
6. (regional, Portugal) An eddy in a deep pool of a river.^[19][18]
7. (regional) The throat.^[1][18]
8. (north-eastern Brazil, Amazonia) Names of small birds of the genus Sporophila.^[4]

Related words

• goela
• gula
• Spanish gola

Usage notes

Houaiss records a separate 20th-century word gola, an adjective and noun of Angolan linguistics meaning the same as ngola.^[4][21]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 90
3. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. golla
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. gola
5. ^ a b c Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. gola
6. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. gola
7. ^ 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. gola
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. s.v. gola
9. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. goela
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 3910
11. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 159
12. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
13. ^ a b 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. gola
14. ^ 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. gola
15. ^ 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, 62
16. ^ a b 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, 878
17. ^ 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. gola
18. ^ a b c Instituto da Lingua Galega, Tesouro do léxico patrimonial galego e portugués (TLPGP), Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, https://ilg.usc.gal/tesouro, p. s.v. gola
19. ^ a b c Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 4728
20. ^ a b 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. gola
21. ^ Wikcionário (Portuguese Wiktionary), pt.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. gola