lavor

Forms

lavor m (plural lavores)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote lauor, and Houaiss records lauores in the 14th century and llavor in the 15th.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin labor (“work, toil”), written Old Galician-Portuguese lauor in the oldest texts.^[3][2][4][1] Houaiss calls it a divergent of the learned form of the same word, which Cunha first records in the 16th century.^[3][2]

The same Latin word is Galician labor, Spanish labor, Catalan llavor and Italian lavoro; the Catalan word means “seed”, and the REW gives Spanish and Portuguese the senses “tilling of the field” and “embroidery”.^[5][1] The origin of the Latin noun is unclear: it is often connected with labō (“to totter”), by a shift from “staggering under a load” to “burden” and “work”, a connection De Vaan finds unconvincing.^[6][7][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The word is recorded from the 13th century in the sense “work”.^[3][2] A cantiga d'escarnho of Pero da Ponte mocks a man who non faz nen un lavor / de que nulh' om' aja sabor “does no work that anyone could enjoy”.^[8][9] The Cantigas de Santa Maria use it both for building work (no lavor de sa ygreja “in the work on her church”) and for embroidery (hũa garnacha... de mui rico lavor “a gown of very rich work”).^[8]

Semantic evolution

Viterbo found the word used in the 14th and 15th centuries for any work, in the fields or on buildings, and especially for cultivated land, sown fields and their crop.^[10] The sense of needlework is equally old.^[3][8] Pereira (1697) glosses Lavor as brosladura “embroidery”, and Morais (1813) as skilful work of the hands, in agriculture or the arts, noting the figurative fez grande lavor no inimigo of artillery fire.^[11][12] Nascentes explains the restriction to needlework and relief ornament by the toil they cost.^[4] The meaning “superficial crystallization in the salt pans that prevents the salt from forming” is recorded by Silva Bastos in 1912, and in the Alentejo lavor is a plot of garden ready for planting.^[13][14]

Timeline

• 13th century – lauor “work” in the cantigas.^[2][8]
• 14th century – the plural lauores; in documents, cultivated land and its crop.^[3][10]
• 16th century – first record of the learned doublet labor.^[2]
• 1697 – Pereira: Lavor, ou brosladura.^[11]
• 1813 – Morais: skilful work of the hands, in agriculture or the arts.^[12]
• 1912 – Silva Bastos records the salt-pan sense.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. Manual work, any handicraft or trade; labor.^[3][15][1]
2. needlework made to a pattern, such as embroidery or lace.^[3][16][1]
3. An ornament in relief, carved or chiselled decoration.^[3][14][1]
4. Any intellectual work or occupation.^[3][17]
5. (salt making) A surface crystallization in the salt pans that stops the salt from forming.^[3][17][1]
6. (Alentejo) A plot of a vegetable garden prepared or used for crops.^[14]

Related words

• labor
• lavrar
• lavoura

Usage notes

Lavor is also a Portuguese surname, at first a nickname.^[18]

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 d e f Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. labor
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. lavor
4. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. lavor
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 4809
6. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
7. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. labeur
8. ^ 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. lavor
9. ^ Lopes, Graça Videira; Ferreira, Manuel Pedro et al. (2011–), Cantigas Medievais Galego-Portuguesas [online database], Lisboa: Instituto de Estudos Medievais, FCSH/NOVA, https://cantigas.fcsh.unl.pt, p. s.v. lavor
10. ^ a b Viterbo, Joaquim de Santa Rosa de (1798–1799), Elucidario das palavras, termos e frases que em Portugal antiguamente se usárão, 2 vols., Lisboa: Simão Thaddeo Ferreira, p. 2, 87
11. ^ a b 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. lavor
12. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 209
13. ^ a b Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. lavor
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. lavor
15. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. lavor
16. ^ Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. lavor
17. ^ 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. lavor
18. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1952), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 2: Nomes próprios, Rio de Janeiro, p. s.v. lavor