joelho

Forms

joelho m (plural joelhos)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote gẽollo and geollo, later giolho, geolho and goelho;^[2] Houaiss records joelhos from the 14th century and gyolhos, ioelhos and juelhos in the 15th.^[3][4][5] Bluteau still heads the word juelho.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin genuculum (“knee”), through the old form Old Galician-Portuguese geollo (also Old Galician-Portuguese gẽollo), which became the present form by metathesis.^[4][3][6][1] The Late Latin word, recorded from the 4th century, is an alteration of Latin geniculum (“little knee; joint”), the diminutive of genū (“knee”), which it tended to replace.^[1][7]

The same Late Latin word is Galician xeonllo, Old Spanish inojo, Catalan genoll, French genou, Italian ginocchio and Romanian genunchi.^[8][1][9]

For the Latin word de Vaan reconstructs a Proto-Indo-European neuter *ǵen-u-, perhaps first a dual “both knees”.^[10] Wiktionary gives Proto-Indo-European *ǵónu, with the cognates Ancient Greek γόνυ (gónu) and Proto-Germanic *knewą.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Lorenzo's chronology and the DDGM begin with the Cantigas de Santa Maria: des que el ouvesse fito-los gẽollos “once he had gone down on his knees”, and en gẽollos ant' o seu altar “on their knees before her altar”.^[5] Houaiss and Cunha date the word to the 13th century.^[3][4]

Semantic evolution

In the medieval texts the word appears almost only in the plural and in the phrase ficar os geollos “to kneel”; the Crónica Geral has it more than twenty times.^[5] The verb ageollar, now ajoelhar, and geolheira, the piece of armour that protected the knee, are of the 13th century as well.^[11][12] Nascentes notes that the archaic geolho still appears in the Lusíadas and is still usual in Caminha.^[13] Later senses are the knee of a pair of trousers, the lap, and, in technical language, the joint that fixes an instrument to its tripod and a jointed part of a machine.^[3][14][15]

Timeline

• 4th century – Latin genuculum is recorded.^[1]
• 13th century – gẽollos in the Cantigas de Santa Maria; first date of ageollar and geolheira.^[5][11][12]
• 14th century – joelhos and giolhos.^[3]
• 15th century – gyolhos, ioelhos and juelhos.^[3]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau heads the word juelho.^[2]
• 1912 – Silva Bastos records the sense “joint between a surveying instrument and its tripod”.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. (anatomy) The knee, the joint between thigh and lower leg, and the front of the leg at that joint.^[3][16][1]
2. The part of a garment that covers the knee: Tinha as calças rasgadas no joelho.^[3][16]
3. (chiefly in the plural) The lap.^[3]
4. (zoology) The joint of the foreleg of a hoofed animal between forearm and cannon.^[17][18]
5. (technology) A joint between moving parts of a machine; the joint that fixes a camera or surveying instrument to its tripé.^[3][16]
6. An elbow joining two pipes at an angle.^[15]

Word family

• ajoelhar
• joelheira

Related words

• genuflexão
• genuflexório
• geniculado
• Latin genū
• Galician xeonllo
• Spanish hinojo

Usage notes

De joelhos is “kneeling”, cair de joelhos “to fall on one's knees” or figuratively to beg forgiveness, and dobrar os joelhos “to kneel; to submit”.^[3] In Brazil the vowel is a closed /e/, and in Portugal it is usually /ɐ/.^[1][19]

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 Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. joelho
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. joelho
4. ^ a b c Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. joelho
5. ^ 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. geollo
6. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. joelho
7. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. genou
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 3737
9. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 366
10. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ a b Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. ajoelhar
12. ^ a b Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. joelheira
13. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. s.v. joelho
14. ^ a b Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. joelho
15. ^ a b Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 5483
16. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. joelho
17. ^ 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. joelho
18. ^ 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. joelho
19. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. joelho