grumo

Forms

grumo m (plural grumos)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin grūmus (“heap of earth, hillock”), according to Wiktionary and the REW, which list the word among the Romance outcomes of the Latin noun.^[1][2] Houaiss, Cunha and Nascentes give the same etymon.^[3][4][5] The word is first recorded only in 1707, and Bluteau already describes it as taken from the Latin.^[3][6]

The same Latin word is Spanish grumo, Catalan grum and Italian grumo; the REW glosses the Spanish and Portuguese words “small lump”.^[2] In Galician there are grumo and gromo, the latter above all for a bud or shoot.^[7][8] French grumeau comes from a diminutive of the Latin noun.^[9]

De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *grōmo- (“heap”) and connects the Latin word, without certainty, with gremium (“lap”) and with Old Church Slavonic грамада (gramada, “heap, pile”).^[10] Wiktionary traces it to Proto-Indo-European *gar- (“to tie, bind together”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss dates the word to 1707.^[3] In Bluteau's dictionary it is a small portion of clotted blood, or of milk hardened in the stomach, in the form of little grains, and he quotes a surgical manual on the grumos of blood from a ruptured vein.^[6]

Semantic evolution

The Latin noun meant a heap of earth or hillock; in Ibero-Romance it passed to the sense of a cluster of things packed together, and so to a small clot.^[11][10] In Portuguese the word long belonged to medicine: Morais (1813) labels it a medical term for a little head of curdled blood or milk that blocks the mouth of a vessel, and Vieira adds a pharmacists' sense, the lumps that keep a medicine from being even.^[12][13] Modern dictionaries define it as a granule, a small clot of albumin, fibrin or casein, and a lump in a badly mixed paste.^[3][14][15] In regional use in Portugal it also names the bud of a tree, as Galician gromo does.^[16][17][8]

Timeline

• 1707 – first record.^[3]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau defines grumo as clotted blood or hardened milk in small grains.^[6]
• 1813 – Morais enters it as a medical term.^[4][12]
• 1873 – Vieira adds the pharmacists' sense of lumps in a medicine.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. A tiny grain; a granule (grânulo).^[3][18][1]
2. A cluster of small grains or particles; a lump in a paste or cream that has not dissolved: A papa ficou cheia de grumos.^[3][15][19]
3. A small clot, especially of albumin, fibrin or casein.^[3][14][16]
4. (Portugal, regional) A bud or shoot on a tree.^[14][16][17]

Word family

• grumoso

Related words

• Latin grūmus
• Spanish grumo
• Galician gromo

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 3889
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. grumo
4. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. grumo
5. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. grumo
6. ^ 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. grumo
7. ^ Estraviz, Isaac Alonso, Dicionário Estraviz, https://estraviz.org, p. s.v. grumo
8. ^ a b Estraviz, Isaac Alonso, Dicionário Estraviz, https://estraviz.org, p. s.v. gromo1
9. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. grumeau
10. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 227
12. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 103
13. ^ 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, 930
14. ^ a b c Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. grumo
15. ^ 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. grumo
16. ^ 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. grumo
17. ^ a b Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 4799
18. ^ Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. grumo
19. ^ Schlee, Aldyr Garcia (2019), Dicionário da Cultura Pampeana Sul-Rio-Grandense, 2 vols., Pelotas: Fructos do Paiz, p. s.v. grumo