lacre

Forms

lacre m (plural lacres)^[1] Old forms are lacra (1498), llacre (1525) and alacre (1563).^[2]

Etymology

It is a variant from Portuguese laca, the name of the resin, which is an important part of sealing wax.^[2][1][3] Nascentes, Aurélio and the DLP derive it from an older lácar with an added -r.^[4][5][6] Corominas also takes this to be the oldest form but calls the origin of its -r uncertain.^[3] Houaiss, following Dalgado, treats both as divergent forms of one word that tend to divide its meanings.^[2][7] The source of that word is Arabic لك (lakk), through Persian from Sanskrit लाक्षा (lākṣā).^[7][1]

Spanish lacre (1572) was borrowed from Portuguese.^[8][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss's first record is lacra in the journal of Vasco da Gama's voyage of 1498, which notes that the land has much lac.^[2][10] The form lacre follows in 1508, in a letter in which the viceroy Francisco de Almeida tells the king how hard it will be to send the lacre he wants.^[2][10]

Semantic evolution

At first lacre named the resin itself, much of it from Pegu: a list of goods shipped from Goa in 1630 has lacre de canudo, lacre de formiga and lacre vermelho.^[10] Bluteau (1712–1728) still describes it as a gum made in India from the sap that winged ants leave on trees.^[11] Pereira's Thesouro of 1697 already glosses it as sealing material, and Morais in 1789 defines it as a mixture of gums used to close and seal letters, sold in sticks.^[12][13]

In Brazil it also names trees whose cut bark gives a red sap, a scrubland of the north-east and, in Minas Gerais, red jasper, named for its colour.^[2][4][14] Today it is also the seal of a container or meter that shows whether it has been opened.^[1] The word was borrowed into Spanish, and Wiktionary lists Malay lakri and Swahili lakiri as loans from it.^[1]

Timeline

• 1498 – lacra in the journal of Vasco da Gama's voyage.^[2][10]
• 1508 – first record of the form lacre.^[2]
• 1563 – the form alacre.^[2]
• 1569 – Cardoso's Portuguese–Latin dictionary glosses lacre with Latin purpurissum, a purple dye.^[15]
• 1570 – lacre in a private letter.^[16]
• 1572 – first record of Spanish lacre.^[8]
• 1630 – a Goa shipping list names several kinds of lacre.^[10]
• 1778 – first record of lacrar “to seal with wax”.^[17]
• 1789 – Morais defines lacre as sealing wax.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. sealing wax: a resin mixed with a dye, soft when heated and hard when cold, used to close letters, bottles and packages: fechou o envelope com lacre.^[2][5][18]
2. A seal on a container or device that is visibly broken when it is opened.^[1]
3. (Brazil, botany) A small tree of the family Guttiferae (Vismia cayennensis), from the Antilles to the upper Amazon; pau-de-lacre.^[2][5]
4. (north-eastern Brazil) Tall, thin scrub of dry-country plants, like that of the agreste.^[2][14]
5. (Minas Gerais) Red jasper.^[2][19]

Word family

• lacrar
• lacrear
• bico-de-lacre
• pau-de-lacre

Related words

• laca
• Spanish lacre

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. lacre
3. ^ a b Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 546
4. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. lacre
5. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. lacre
6. ^ 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. lacre
7. ^ a b Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. laca
8. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. laca
9. ^ Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. lacre
10. ^ a b c d e Dalgado, Sebastião Rodolfo (1919–1921), Glossário luso-asiático, 2 vols., Coimbra: Imprensa da Universidade, p. 1, 501
11. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. lacre
12. ^ 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. lacre
13. ^ a b 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. 2, 2
14. ^ a b Navarro, Fred (2004), Dicionário do Nordeste, São Paulo: Estação Liberdade, p. s.v. lacre
15. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. lacre
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. lacre
17. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. lacrar
18. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. lacre
19. ^ 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. lacre