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herdeiro

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Etymology and origin of the Portuguese word herdeiro

Confidence
Established
Formation
Inherited
First attested
1200s spelt erdeiro and herdeyro More words from the 13th century
Inherited from
Latin hereditarius
Ultimate origin
Latin hērēditās
Etymology tree
inherited borrowed derived
Latin hērēs
Latin hērēditās
English heredity
French hérédité
Latin hērēditārius
French héritier
Portuguese herdeiro
Spanish heredero
English hereditary
Spanish hereditario
From the same root
Latin cohērēs ← hērēs
Latin hērēditō ← hērēditās
French héritage ← héritier

Pronunciation

  • Brazil: /eʁˈde(j).ɾu/, [eɦˈde(ɪ̯).ɾu][1]
  • São-Paulo: /eɾˈde(j).ɾu/, [eɾˈde(ɪ̯).ɾu][1]
  • Rio-de-Janeiro: /eʁˈde(j).ɾu/, [eʁˈde(ɪ̯).ɾu][1]
  • Caipira: /eɻˈde(j).ɾu/, [eɻˈde(ɪ̯).ɾu][1]

Forms

herdeiro m (plural herdeiros)[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote erdeiro, erdeyro, herdeyro and herdeiro.[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin hērēditārius (“of an inheritance”), written Old Galician-Portuguese erdeiro and Old Galician-Portuguese herdeyro in the oldest texts.[3][2][1][5] Houaiss notes that the adjective displaced Latin hērēs (“heir”) on the way into Portuguese and Spanish.[3] Nascentes assumed a longer intermediate form, shortened by haplology, and quotes from Cortesão Latin texts of 991 and 1258 that already have the word.[3][6][7] Silva Bastos and Figueiredo derived the word from herdar, and to a speaker today it looks like the verb with the suffix -eiro.[8][9][1] The learned doublet is hereditário.[3][1]

The same Latin word is Galician herdeiro, Spanish heredero and French héritier.[10][11] The Latin adjective is formed from hērēditās (“inheritance”) with the suffix -ārius.[12][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the Cantigas de Santa Maria erdeiro is the heir to a man's goods: a man who could have no son “to be heir to his wealth after his death”.[13] A satirical cantiga of Alfonso X speaks of someone “and all his heirs”.[13] The Crónica Troiana says of a king that “he had no son nor heir, and so his kingdom was later ruined”.[4] In the Miragres de Santiago erdeiros are the co-owners of a small church, each taking his share.[13]

Semantic evolution

Besides the heir to an estate, medieval Galician documents use the word for the owner of a herdade and for a settler who worked a lord's land.[14] Morais (1789) records herdeiros dos mosteiros, the descendants of the founders and patrons of monasteries, who received certain allowances from them.[15] Figueiredo and Silva Bastos record a sense “partner, associate” in the Minho.[9][8] Today the word is also informal for a son, and figurative for someone who inherits a trait or continues another's work.[3][16][17]

Timeline

  • 991 – eredario in a Latin charter, as Nascentes quotes it.[7]
  • 13th century – erdeiro and herdeyro.[2][3]
  • c. 1430 – herdeiro and herdeyro in the Horto do Esposo (copied 1390–1437).[18][19]
  • 1565 – herdeira in a private letter.[20]
  • 1697 – Pereira's Thesouro renders Herdeiro by Latin haeres.[21]
  • 1789 – Morais defines the heir by law or by will, and the herdeiros dos mosteiros.[15]
  • 1899 – Figueiredo records the Minho sense “partner”.[9]

Meanings

Noun

  1. An heir: someone who receives or will receive an inheritance (herança).[3][5][1]
  2. (law) Someone who succeeds to the whole of an estate or a share of it, by law or by will.[3][5][16]
  3. A successor; someone who carries on another person's art, tradition or work.[3][16][17]
  4. Someone who has inherited physical or moral traits from a relative.[3][22]
  5. (informal) A son.[5][16]
  6. (historical) A descendant of the founder or patron of a church or monastery, entitled to a yearly allowance from it.[17][15]
  7. (Minho) A partner or associate.[9]

Word family

  • coerdeiro

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. herança
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. herdeiro
  4. ^ a b 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. herdeyro
  5. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. herdeiro
  6. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. herdeiro
  7. ^ 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. 258
  8. ^ a b Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. herdeiro
  9. ^ a b c d Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. 700
  10. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. hereditarius
  11. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. héritier
  12. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. hērēditārius
  13. ^ a b c 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. erdeiro
  14. ^ 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. herdeiro
  15. ^ a b c 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, 80
  16. ^ a b c d 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. herdeiro
  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. herdeiro
  18. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. herdeiro
  19. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. herdeyro
  20. ^ 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. herdeiro
  21. ^ 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. herdeiro
  22. ^ 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. herdeiro

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Herdeiro.” Etymologically, 15 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/pt/herdeiro. Accessed 16 Nov. 2026.

Last edited on . ·