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justiça

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Etymology and origin of the Portuguese word justiça

Confidence
Established
Formation
Inherited
First attested
1200s More words from the 13th century
Inherited from
Latin iustitia
Ultimate origin
Latin iūstus
Etymology tree
inherited borrowed derived
Latin iūs
French jus
Latin iūstus
Italian giusto
Portuguese justo
Spanish justo
English just
French juste
Romanian just
Latin iūstitia
Portuguese justiça
Italian giustizia
Romanian justiție
Spanish justicia
From the same root
Latin iniūriā ← iūs
Latin iūdex ← iūs
Latin iure ← iūs
Latin iūrgō ← iūs
Latin iūriscōnsultus ← iūs
Latin iūrisdictiō ← iūs
Latin iūrisprūdentia ← iūs
Latin iūrō ← iūs
Latin iūsiūrandum ← iūs
Latin iūstitium ← iūs
Latin periūrus ← iūs
Dutch juist ← iūstus
Latin iniūstus ← iūstus
Latin iuste ← iūstus
Latin iūstificō ← iūstus
Italian giustezza ← giusto
English unjust ← just
French ajuster ← juste
French justement ← juste

Pronunciation

  • Brazil: /ʒusˈt͡ʃi.sɐ/[1]
  • Rio-de-Janeiro: /ʒuʃˈt͡ʃi.sɐ/[1]
  • Portugal: /ʒuʃˈti.sɐ/[1]

Forms

justiça f (plural justiças)[1] Thirteenth-century texts write justiça and jostiça; later ones also have justicia, iustica and justyça.[2] Feijó (1734) rejects the spelling justissa.[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin iūstitia (“justice, equity”), written Old Galician-Portuguese justiça in the oldest texts.[2][4][1] Nascentes and Aurélio call it a semi-learned word, and Wiktionary treats it as a borrowing from Latin.[5][6][1]

The same Latin word is Galician xustiza, Spanish justicia, Catalan justícia, French justice and Italian giustizia.[1] García de Diego gives justeza as the popular outcome of the Latin noun in Spanish and Portuguese, and calls the Spanish word a learned form.[7] Wiktionary also counts that word as a possible doublet.[1] French borrowed its word from Latin about 1050.[8]

The Latin noun is derived from iūstus (“just”) with the suffix -itia.[1][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss dates the word to the 13th century.[2] In the cantigas it means justice and the rule of law: E creede que en justiça / pod'i máis anda-la terra “and believe that the land can go further in justice”.[10] The Crónica Troiana uses it for justice as a virtue (era home de gran justiça “he was a man of great justice”), and also for revenge and punishment.[11]

Semantic evolution

The medieval senses “punishment, vengeance” lived on in fazer justiça: Morais (1789) defines the noun as the virtue of acting by the laws and the carrying out of what they prescribe, and fazer justiça a alguém as “to punish someone according to the law”.[12] He also records justiça as a masculine noun for the judge or magistrate who carries out the sentences.[12] Bluteau's book of synonyms treats it as equity and the science most needed by kings.[13]

Today the word names the moral principle, the recognition of someone's merit, the judicial power and its courts, and the people who serve in them.[2][6][14] Fazer justiça still means to apply the penalty, especially death, as well as to do someone justice;[2] fazer justiça pelas próprias mãos is to take the law into one's own hands.[2] Houaiss records the informal justiça de funil “funnel justice” for partial judgement.[2]

Timeline

  • 13th century – first records, spelt justiça and jostiça.[2][4]
  • 14th century – the spelling justicia.[2]
  • c. 1430 – the Horto do Esposo (witness of 1391–1450).[15]
  • 1542 – first in the private letters of Post Scriptum.[16]
  • 1569 – the plural justiças in a royal alvará.[17]
  • 1734 – Feijó corrects justissa to justiça.[3]
  • 1789 – Morais records fazer justiça “to punish” and the masculine “judge”.[12]
  • 1812 – first in the Bahian documents of CE-DOHS.[18]

Meanings

Noun

  1. justice, fairness: the quality of what conforms to right and to what is due to each person.[2][6][19]
  2. The virtue of giving each person what belongs to them; one of the four cardinal virtues.[20][21][14]
  3. Recognition of someone's merit: fazer justiça a alguém.[2]
  4. The power to enforce the law, and its exercise.[2][14]
  5. The judiciary: the courts, and the judges and officers who serve in them.[2][6][1]
  6. Each of the jurisdictions of the courts: Justiça Militar.[2]
  7. Punishment under the law.[20][21]

Word family

  • justiçar
  • justiceiro
  • justo
  • justeza
  • Galician xustiza

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 Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. justiça
  3. ^ a b Feijó, João de Morais Madureira (1734), Orthographia, ou Arte de escrever, e pronunciar com acerto a lingua portugueza, Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. justiça
  4. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. justo
  5. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. justiça
  6. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. justiça
  7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. justitia
  8. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. justice
  9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. iustitia
  10. ^ 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. justiça
  11. ^ 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. justiça
  12. ^ 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, 748
  13. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. justiça
  14. ^ 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. justiça
  15. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. justiça
  16. ^ 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. justiça
  17. ^ NEHiLP – Núcleo de Apoio à Pesquisa em Etimologia e História da Língua Portuguesa, Universidade de São Paulo, DELPo: Dicionário Etimológico da Língua Portuguesa (online database), p. s.v. justiça
  18. ^ Carneiro, Zenaide de Oliveira Novais; Lacerda, Mariana Fagundes de Oliveira (orgs.), CE-DOHS: Corpus Eletrônico de Documentos Históricos do Sertão, Feira de Santana: UEFS, http://www5.uefs.br/cedohs, p. s.v. justiça
  19. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 5512
  20. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. justiça
  21. ^ 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. justiça

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Justiça.” Etymologically, 15 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/pt/justi%C3%A7a. Accessed 16 Nov. 2026.

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