inverno

Forms

inverno m (plural invernos)^[1] Houaiss records inverno and yuerno in the 13th century and iverbho in the 14th;^[2][3] Cunha has ĩvernho in the 14th.^[2][3] The cantigas also have enverno.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin hībernum (“winter”), through the old form Old Galician-Portuguese iverno.^[2][1] The Latin noun is the neuter of hībernus (“of winter”), used alone for a phrase with tempus (“time, season”), “the wintry season”.^[2][3][5] It took the place of the classical word for winter, hiems.^[6]

Nascentes explains the ⟨n⟩ of the first syllable, which is not in the Latin word, by the language's dislike of an unstressed initial ⟨i⟩ standing alone,^[5] and Wiktionary compares the same added nasal in Spanish invierno.^[1] The Spanish word itself replaced an older ivierno.^[7][8]

The same Latin word is Galician inverno, Catalan hivern, French hiver, Italian inverno and Romanian iarnă.^[9][1] The Latin adjective goes back to Proto-Italic *heimrinos and the noun to Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰéyōm (“winter”);^[1][10] Ancient Greek χειμερινός (kheimerinós, “wintry”) is a cognate.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the Cantigas de Santa Maria the word is paired with summer, en yvern'e en estade “in winter and in summer”, and one miracle tells of rain as heavy come no mayor inverno do mundo “as in the worst winter in the world”.^[11] A satirical cantiga of Alfonso X says sempre avedes a morrer en invern' ou en estio “you will always die in winter or in summer”.^[11]

Semantic evolution

From the season the word came to mean cold, rainy weather, and figuratively old age; in the plural, invernos are years of a person's life.^[2][12] Morais (1813) records the military quartéis de inverno “winter quarters”.^[13]

In northern and north-eastern Brazil inverno is the rainy season, which there falls in the summer and autumn months.^[2] In the north-eastern backlands it lasts roughly from December to May and is also called verde or invernada.^[14] In Rio Grande do Sul the saying inverno sem minuano é canela sem tutano uses a winter without the cold south-west wind as the image of an impossible thing.^[15]

Timeline

• 1200s – first records, in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[2][3][11]
• 1697 – Pereira renders Inverno by Latin hyems.^[16]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau defines it as the coldest of the four seasons, December to February.^[17]
• 1813 – Morais records quartéis de inverno.^[13]
• 1899 – Figueiredo gives the figurative sense “old age”.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. winter, the coldest season, between autumn and spring; in the southern hemisphere from June to September.^[2][18][1]
2. Cold, rainy weather.^[2][19]
3. (northern and north-eastern Brazil) The rainy season.^[2][14][1]
4. (figurative) old age, the last part of life; a period of decline.^[2][19][1]
5. (in the plural) Years of age, said especially of old people.^[2][20]

Word family

• invernal
• invernar
• invernia
• invernoso

Related words

• hibernal
• hibernar
• hibernação
• Latin hībernus
• Galician inverno
• Spanish invierno

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. inverno
3. ^ a b c d Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. inverno
4. ^ Universo Cantigas: Glosario da poesía medieval profana galego-portuguesa, A Coruña: Instituto da Lingua e Literatura (ILLA), Universidade da Coruña, https://www.universocantigas.gal, p. s.v. inverno
5. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. inverno
6. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. hiver
7. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 461
8. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. invierno
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 4126
10. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. hiems
11. ^ 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. inverno
12. ^ a b Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. 772
13. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 179
14. ^ a b Navarro, Fred (2004), Dicionário do Nordeste, São Paulo: Estação Liberdade, p. s.v. inverno
15. ^ Schlee, Aldyr Garcia (2019), Dicionário da Cultura Pampeana Sul-Rio-Grandense, 2 vols., Pelotas: Fructos do Paiz, p. 2
16. ^ 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. inverno
17. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. inverno
18. ^ Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. inverno
19. ^ 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. inverno
20. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 5385