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humor

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Etymology and origin of the Portuguese word humor

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing, Semantic loan
First attested
1200s Cantigas de Santa Maria, spelt umor More words from the 13th century
Borrowed from
Latin humor
Ultimate origin
Latin humor

Pronunciation

  • Brazil: /uˈmoʁ/, [uˈmoh][1]
  • São-Paulo: /uˈmoɾ/[1]
  • Rio-de-Janeiro: /uˈmoʁ/, [uˈmoχ][1]
  • Caipira: /uˈmoɻ/[1]

Forms

humor m (plural humores)[1] The oldest texts write umor; the spelling humor appears in the 14th century.[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin humor (“fluid, moisture”), written Old Galician-Portuguese umor in the oldest texts.[2][3][1] The Latin word is a later spelling of ūmor, from the time when /h/ was no longer pronounced.[1] The cognate French humeur is recorded from 1119, and the DHLF relates the Latin noun to ūmeō (“to be moist”).[4]

The sense “mood” comes from the medical doctrine of the four humours, which made a person's temper depend on the body's fluids.[2][5] The sense “comic wit, humour” is a semantic loan: Cunha and the DLP trace it to humour.[3][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the Cantigas de Santa Maria a miracle takes away from a sick man “the fever and that bad humour” (o fever e aquel umor mao): the word means a fluid of the body.[7] Cunha's earliest sense is likewise “the liquid contained in an organised body; moisture”.[3]

Semantic evolution

In medicine the word named each of the four humours, blood, yellow bile, phlegm and black bile, which were thought to shape a person's temper, and so it came to mean a person's disposition.[3][2] Cunha dates this sense to the 15th century, Houaiss the sense “state of mind” to 1665.[3][2] Folqman in 1755 already has máo humor and bom humor, and Morais in 1813 gives the fluid of the body first and good or bad temper second.[8][9] Bluteau listed the three humours of the eye, crystalline, vitreous and aqueous, still the anatomical terms.[10][2]

The sense “comic wit, gentle irony” is first recorded in Figueiredo's dictionary of 1899.[3][11] Cunha's derivatives show the same split: humorismo was the medical doctrine of the humours in 1858 and “comicality” in 1899, and humorista passed from a physician of that school (1873) to a comic writer (19th century).[3]

Timeline

  • 13th century – umor, a fluid of the body, in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.[7][2]
  • 14th century – first record of the spelling humor.[2][3]
  • 15th century – the sense “disposition of the mind”.[3]
  • c. 1430 – humor in the Horto do Esposo.[12]
  • 1611 – Barbosa's dictionary renders the word with Latin humor.[13]
  • 1665 – Houaiss's date for the sense “state of mind, temper”.[2]
  • 1836 – the sense “good temper” in Cunha's addenda.[3]
  • 1899 – Figueiredo gives the senses “comic vein” and “delicate, cheerful irony”.[11][3]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (historical, medicine) Each of the four humours, the fluids thought to determine a person's health and temper.[2][14][1]
  2. (anatomy) A fluid of the body;[2][15] humor aquoso and humor vítreo, the fluids of the eye.[2][15]
  3. mood, state of mind; temper: Hoje acordou de mau humor.[2][6][1]
  4. (medicine) A lasting affective state that colours a person's mental life.[2]
  5. Comicality; humour, wit: um filme cheio de humor.[2][6][1]
  6. The ironic, clever expression of reality, and the faculty of seeing and expressing what is comic;[2] humor negro “black humour”.[2]

Word family

  • humorado
  • humoroso
  • humoral
  • humorismo
  • humorista
  • humorístico
  • úmido
  • French humeur

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. humor
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. humor
  4. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. humeur
  5. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. humor
  6. ^ 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. humor
  7. ^ 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. umor
  8. ^ Folqman, Carlos (1755), Diccionario portuguez, e latino, Lisboa: Régia Officina Silviana (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. humor
  9. ^ Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 123
  10. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. humor
  11. ^ a b Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. s.v. humor
  12. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. humor
  13. ^ Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. humor
  14. ^ Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. humor
  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. humor

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Humor.” Etymologically, 15 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/pt/humor. Accessed 16 Nov. 2026.

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