laço

Forms

laço m (plural laços)^[1] Medieval spellings include lacos and lazo (14th century) and llaço and laaços (15th).^[2] Feijó (1734) warns that laço “bow, snare” must not be confused with lasso and laxo.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *laceus, a Vulgar Latin form of laqueus (“noose, snare, trap”), written Old Galician-Portuguese laço in the oldest texts.^[2][4][1][5] Corominas explains the change of the Latin form as a simplification, common to all the Romance languages and already complete in Vulgar Latin, of a hard group of sounds; the voiceless ⟨ç⟩ of Portuguese against the voiced ⟨z⟩ of Old Spanish is regular in each language.^[6]

The same Latin word is Galician lazo, Spanish lazo, Catalan llaç, French lacs, Italian laccio and Romanian laț.^[7][1]

De Vaan rejects the old derivation of the Latin noun from laciō (“to entice”) on phonetic and semantic grounds and gives no other etymology.^[8] The DHLF considers it probably a loan, perhaps from Etruscan, like many Latin words ending in ⟨-eus⟩.^[9] Wiktionary sets up a Proto-Italic root *lakʷ- (“to ensnare”) without certain cognates.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Lorenzo's chronology finds the word in the Cantigas de Santa Maria: in cantiga 13 a man lle corregeu / o laço perque morresse “fixed for him the noose to die by”, and cantiga 65 speaks of este laço en que jaz liado “this noose in which he lies bound”.^[10] Houaiss and Cunha date the word to the 13th century.^[2][4]

Semantic evolution

The Crónica Troiana already uses the word for the bonds of love (aqueles que jazen ẽno seu laço) and for the straps of a helmet.^[10] Houaiss dates the sense “snare for game” to the 15th century.^[2] Bluteau (1712) lists the noose of a hanged man, the snare for birds and beasts, and, figuratively, any trick to deceive someone.^[11]

The sense “tie between people”, as in laços de amizade and laços matrimoniais, is common in the modern language.^[2][12][1] In Brazil, and especially in the cattle country of the south, laço is the long rope of braided leather with a running noose used to catch cattle and horses, the lasso.^[2][13] In Portugal the word also means a bow tie.^[2][14]

Timeline

• 13th century – the Cantigas de Santa Maria use laço “noose”.^[10][4]
• 14th century – the spellings lacos and lazo.^[2]
• 15th century – first record of the sense “snare for game”.^[2]
• c. 1430 – the Horto do Esposo (copied 1390–1437) has laço.^[15]
• 1611 – Barbosa distinguishes laço “noose” from laço pera tomar aves “snare for birds”.^[16]
• 1712 – Bluteau records the figurative sense “trick”.^[11]
• 1734 – Feijó distinguishes laço from lasso and laxo.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A bow or slip knot that comes undone easily, with one or more loops: atou os sapatos com um laço.^[2][12][1]
2. A ribbon tied in such a knot as an ornament.^[17][14]
3. A snare for catching game.^[2][12]
4. (figurative) A trick or trap: caiu no laço.^[2][12]
5. (figurative, often in the plural) A bond or tie between people or groups: laços de família.^[2][12][1]
6. (Brazil) A lasso: a long rope of braided leather with a running noose, used to catch cattle and horses.^[2][12][13]
7. (Portugal) A bow tie, gravata-borboleta.^[2][14]
8. (geometry) A loop of a curve between two passages through a nodal point.^[2][12]

Word family

• laçada
• laçar
• laçarote
• laçador
• enlaçar
• enlace
• desenlaçar
• desenlace
• deslaçar
• entrelaçar

Related words

• laçaço
• laçarada
• laçaria
• laçarrão
• Latin laqueus
• Galician lazo

Usage notes

Em cima do laço means “at the last moment, without delay” in informal Brazilian Portuguese.^[2][12] Laços dos ofícios is a Portuguese folk dance in which the dancers, holding sticks with bows, mimic the work of the trades.^[2][12]

The DLP enters a separate noun laço “film on the surface of a liquid; coarse lime plaster”, from Latin lacteus (“of milk”);^[11] Bluteau already has laço de leite “skin on boiled milk”.^[14][11]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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 r Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. laço
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. laço
4. ^ a b c Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. laço
5. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. laço
6. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 612
7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. laqueus
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. lacs
10. ^ 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. laço
11. ^ a b c d Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. laço
12. ^ a b c d e f g h i Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. laço
13. ^ a b Schlee, Aldyr Garcia (2019), Dicionário da Cultura Pampeana Sul-Rio-Grandense, 2 vols., Pelotas: Fructos do Paiz, p. s.v. laço
14. ^ 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. laço
15. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. laço
16. ^ Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. laço
17. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. laço