lago

Forms

lago m (plural lagos)^[1] Houaiss records a 15th-century spelling laguo.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin lacus (“lake; reservoir, basin”), written Old Galician-Portuguese lago in the oldest texts.^[2][3][1][4] Latin /k/ between vowels was voiced to /ɡ/.^[5][1]

The same Latin word is Galician lago, Spanish lago, Catalan llac, Italian lago and Romanian lac.^[6][7] It was inherited as Old French lai, but French lac was taken again from Latin in the 12th century.^[8][1]

De Vaan derives the Latin noun from Proto-Italic *laku- and Proto-Indo-European *lok-u- (“lake”), with cognates in Old Irish loch, Old English lagu and Ancient Greek λάκκος (lákkos, “pond”).^[9] Houaiss also links the Greek word, which he glosses “pit, well”.^[9][2] De Vaan explains the Latin /a/ as an unrounding of /o/ after a velarised [ɫ].^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantigas de Santa Maria warn the listener que non caias no lago d’iferno “that you may not fall into the lake of hell”, the Latin word's medieval sense of a pit or place of confinement.^[10][11] The Miragres de Santiago tell of a lake moyto alto et moy negro “very deep and very black”, full of great black fishes, and a cantiga d'amigo sings of the friend seen shooting birds ennas ribas do lago “on the banks of the lake”.^[10][12]

Semantic evolution

In medieval Galician documents lago was also a pool or tank of water, such as the pool where flax was steeped (o lago do liño).^[10] Bluteau in 1712 describes a lake as lying among hills and fed by its own springs, some so large that they were called seas, like the Caspian.^[13] Morais in 1789 adds a large quantity of spilt liquid, um lago de sangue “a pool of blood”, and the biblical lago dos leões, the lions' den.^[14][15] Modern dictionaries add the ornamental pond of a garden and many terms of geomorphology and anatomy (lago de cratera, lago lacrimal).^[2][16] In Maranhão a lago coberto is a marsh overgrown with buriti palms.^[2][17]

Timeline

• 13th century – first record, in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[2][3][10]
• 15th century – the spelling laguo.^[2]
• c. 1430 – first record in the CTA corpus, in the Horto do Esposo.^[18]
• 1439 – lago in a notarial book of Noia, Galicia.^[10]
• 1569 – Cardoso glosses lago with Latin lacus.^[19]
• 1712 – Bluteau's description of lakes.^[13]
• 1789 – Morais adds the sense “pool of spilt liquid”.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. A lake: a large, permanent body of water in a closed hollow of the land.^[2][1][20]
2. An ornamental pond in a garden or park.^[2][21]
3. A large pool of liquid spilt on the ground: um lago de vinho na cozinha.^[2][22]
4. (anatomy) A space or cavity holding fluid, as the lago lacrimal at the inner corner of the eye.^[2]
5. (Brazil, Maranhão) lago coberto: a marsh full of buriti palms.^[2][17]

Word family

• alagar
• alagadiço
• alagamento

Related words

• lagoa
• lagar
• lacuna
• lacustre
• Latin lacus
• Galician lago

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 Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. lago
3. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. lago
4. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. lago
5. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 288
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. lacus
7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. lacus
8. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. lac
9. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ a b c d e 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. lago
11. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. lacus
12. ^ 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. lago
13. ^ a b Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. lago
14. ^ 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, 4
15. ^ Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 200
16. ^ Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. lago
17. ^ a b Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda (1975), Novo dicionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira, p. 838
18. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. lago
19. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. lago
20. ^ 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. lago
21. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. lago
22. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 5548