grau

Forms

grau m (plural graus)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote grao, and graao from the 14th century.^[2][3][4] Cardoso, Barbosa, Bluteau and Morais head the word grao or gráo, and Vieira in 1871–1874 heads it grau.^{[5][6][7][8][9]} Feijó (1734) wrote gráo, “with the diphthong ao”, for the degree taken in a science, and graõ for the grain.^[10][11]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin gradus (“step, pace; rank, degree”), written Old Galician-Portuguese grao and Old Galician-Portuguese graao in the oldest texts.^{[2][3][12][1]} The learned grado “degree” is a doublet of the same Latin word, recorded in Cunha from the 15th century.^[2][3] The word was long spelt like grão “grain”, from which the dictionaries kept it apart.^[10][11]

The same Latin word is Galician grao, Spanish grado, Catalan grau and Italian grado.^[13][14][15] The French degré adds a prefix.^[13][14][15] Meyer-Lübke also lists degrau “step of a stair” among its compounds.^[13]

The Latin noun belongs with gradior (“to step, walk”) and continues *graðus, from *gʰredʰ- (“to walk, go”).^[16][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Lorenzo's chronology quotes the Portuguese Foro Real: poys que ygaes sũ en grao “since they are equal in degree” and ata o grao que manda a sancta eygreya “up to the degree that holy Church commands”.^[4] The Rule of Saint Benedict speaks of the desvairados graos d'omildade “the various degrees of humility”.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The medieval word already had the abstract senses “rank, degree, stage”.^[4][3] The Chronicle of 1344 uses graaos for the divisions measured in geometry.^[4] Bluteau (1712–1728) explains the word with the university degrees of bachelor, licentiate and doctor and the orders of the Church, each a step to the next.^[7] Morais (1813) adds the degree of a circle, divided into 360 parts, and the degrees of the thermometer and barometer.^[8]

The modern language has the units of temperature, angle, alcohol content and eyesight, the degrees of kinship, the algebraic degree of a polynomial and the degrees of comparison of grammar.^[2][17] In informal speech grau is also a wheelie on a bicycle or motorcycle.^[1]

Timeline

• 13th century – first records, spelt grao.^[2][3]
• 1344 – the Chronicle of 1344 has graaos “divisions” in geometry.^[4]
• 14th century – the spelling graao.^[2][3]
• 1569 – Cardoso glosses grao with Latin gradus.^[5]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau describes the university and Church degrees.^[7]
• 1813 – Morais records the degree of a circle and of the thermometer.^[8]
• 1871–1874 – Vieira heads the word grau.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. Each of the stages or positions in a process or a scale; level: o grau de humidade do ar.^[2][17]
2. Rank, class, category: um pintor do mais alto grau.^[2][18]
3. Each of the successive posts of a career or profession.^[2][18]
4. An academic degree, a title conferred by a university.^[18][19][1]
5. The distance in generations between relatives: primo em segundo grau.^[2][20]
6. A division of the scale of a measuring instrument; a unit of temperature (temperatura): Hoje estão trinta graus.^[2][21][1]
7. A unit of alcohol content, or of the strength of spectacle lenses: óculos de grau.^[2]
8. (geometry) A unit of angle, 1/360 of a circle.^[2][19][1]
9. (algebra) The highest sum of exponents of the variables in a term of a polynomial.^[2][19][1]
10. (grammar) The comparative and superlative variation of adjectives and adverbs.^[2][20]
11. (informal) A wheelie on a bicycle or motorcycle.^[1]

Related words

• graduação
• gradual
• graduar
• degrau
• grado
• gradação
• degradar
• Latin gradus

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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. grau
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. grau
4. ^ 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. grao
5. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. grao
6. ^ Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. grao
7. ^ 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. grao
8. ^ a b c Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 98
9. ^ 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, 911
10. ^ a b Feijó, João de Morais Madureira (1734), Orthographia, ou Arte de escrever, e pronunciar com acerto a lingua portugueza, Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. gráo
11. ^ a b Feijó, João de Morais Madureira (1734), Orthographia, ou Arte de escrever, e pronunciar com acerto a lingua portugueza, Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. graõ
12. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. grau
13. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 3831
14. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. gradus
15. ^ 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. 248
16. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. gradus
17. ^ a b Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. grau
18. ^ a b c 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. grau
19. ^ a b c Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. grau
20. ^ a b Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 4777
21. ^ 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. grau