grego

Forms

grego (feminine grega, masculine plural gregos, feminine plural gregas)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin Graecus (“Greek”), written Old Galician-Portuguese grego in the oldest texts.^[2][1][3] The Latin word is from Ancient Greek Γραικός (Graikós), an old name of the Hellenes;^[4][1] Nascentes notes that the name later came back into use.^[4][1] Aristotle uses Γραικοί for a people around Dodona who were later called Hellenes.^[5][1] The DHLF notes that the Greek word is very rare beside Ἕλλην and is probably foreign, passed to Latin early, perhaps through Etruscan.^[6]

The same Latin word is Galician grego, Spanish griego, Italian greco and Romanian grec.^[7][8] The learned French grec replaced the inherited Old French grieu.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantigas de Santa Maria speak of the God who is called Ayoz by the Greeks (dos gregos); Lorenzo's chronology adds en grego “in Greek” for the language from the Crónica Geral.^[9] Houaiss dates the noun to the 13th century.^[2] The Crónica Troiana uses the word both for the Greeks of the Trojan war and for their language.^[9]

Semantic evolution

The word has named both the people and the language since the medieval texts.^[9] Bluteau (1712–1728) records the language, the adjective and the fogo grego “Greek fire”.^[10] The figurative sense “obscure, unintelligible”, as in isso para mim é grego, is in the old Caldas Aulete with a quotation of 1874, and Silva Bastos (1912) has the popular ver-se grego “to be in a fix”.^[11][12] Brazilian slang adds “a cheat at cards”, and in some Portuguese villages grego means “stammerer”.^[13][14]

Timeline

• 1200s – dos gregos in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[9][2]
• c. 1430 – grego in the Horto do Esposo.^[15]
• 1569 – Cardoso glosses it with Latin grecus.^[16]
• 1611 – Barbosa enters grego as the Greek language.^[17]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau lists fogo grego.^[10]
• 1874 – falar-lhe grego “to speak Greek to him”, quoted in the old Caldas Aulete.^[11]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Greek: of Grécia, its people or its language.^[2][18][1]
2. Of ancient Greece or of modern Greece.^[2]
3. Of the Orthodox Church of Greece.^[18]
4. (figurative, informal) unintelligible, obscure: Esses termos técnicos são grego para mim.^[2][19]

Noun

1. A native or inhabitant of Greece; a Hellene.^{[19][2][18][1]}
2. The Greek language.^[2][18][1]
3. Writing in the Greek alphabet.^[2]
4. (Brazil, slang) A cheat at cards.^[13]

Word family

• grego antigo
• presente de grego

Related words

• Grécia

Usage notes

Set phrases: agradar a gregos e troianos “to please both sides”, estar grego em “to know nothing about”, and presente de grego, a gift that brings harm.^[18][20][1]

The DLP also records a separate noun grego “vomit”, a shortening of gregório.^[18]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. grego
3. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. grego
4. ^ 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. 249
5. ^ Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. Γραικός
6. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. grec
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. graecus
9. ^ a b c d 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. grego
10. ^ 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. grego
11. ^ a b 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. grego
12. ^ Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. grego
13. ^ 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. grego
14. ^ 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. grego
15. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. grego
16. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. grego
17. ^ Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. grego
18. ^ a b c d e f 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. grego
19. ^ a b Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. grego
20. ^ Estraviz, Isaac Alonso, Dicionário Estraviz, https://estraviz.org, p. s.v. grego