leito

Forms

leito m (plural leitos)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin lectus (“bed, couch”), written Old Galician-Portuguese leito in the oldest texts and also Old Galician-Portuguese lleyto in the 14th century.^[2][3][4][1] Nascentes notes, after Nunes, that the Latin short ⟨e⟩ gave a close /e/.^[5] The diphthong is /ej/ in Brazil and northern Portugal and /ɐj/ in standard European Portuguese.^[1]

The same Latin word is Galician leito, Spanish lecho, Catalan llit, Occitan lèit, French lit, Italian letto and Sardinian letu.^[6][1] Spanish had the form Old Spanish leito in a Leonese document of 1000 before the modern form prevailed.^[7]

The Latin noun comes from Proto-Indo-European *legʰ- (“to lie”); de Vaan reconstructs it either as a noun *legʰ-to- “lain upon” or as a tu-stem *legʰ-tu- “the lying”, which later passed to the o-stems.^[8][1] Ancient Greek λέχος (lékhos, “bed”) is a cognate.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

A Latin text of 1231 among the Leges already uses the Romance word in a list of tolls: de leito aut de escano II denarios, “for a bed or a bench two deniers”.^[9] In the cantigas it is the bed: a cantiga d'escarnho of Lopo Liaz mocks a man who has a gilded bed carried behind him, and the Cantigas de Santa Maria tell of someone moving in the bed where he lay.^[9] In the Miragres de Santiago a sick man wakes do leito hu jazia cõ mĩa infirmidade, “from the bed where I lay with my illness”.^[9]

Semantic evolution

Bluteau describes the leito as a bedstead with four tall posts and boards on which the bedding is laid, hung with curtains.^[10] Morais (1789) already records a range of transferred senses: a gun platform in artillery, the bed of a cart on which the load rests, the deck at the stern of a boat, the bed of a river, citing Vasconcelos, and the bed on which masons set a stone.^[11] The riverbed and the base of a road or railway remain central senses today, and Houaiss adds the geological stratum, the bed of a machine and, figuratively, marriage.^[2][12]

In everyday speech the word for a bed is cama;^[1] leito is poetic or old-fashioned, except for hospital beds, chiefly in Brazil.^[1] In India it was used for a bar of silver.^[2]

Timeline

• 1231 – de leito aut de escano in a Latin text of the Leges.^[9]
• 13th century – first records of the vernacular word.^[2][3]
• 14th century – the spelling lleyto.^[2]
• 1416 – leito in the Vida de Santo Aleixo.^[13]
• 1569 – Cardoso glosses leito with Latin lectus.^[14]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau describes the four-posted bed with curtains.^[10]
• 1789 – Morais lists the bed of a cart, of a boat and of a river.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. A bedstead: the frame of wood, iron or other material that holds up the mattress.^[2][12]
2. (literary) A bed, with its bedding.^[2][12][1]
3. Anything one can lie on to rest.^[2][12]
4. A litter or palanquin.^[2]
5. (chiefly Brazil) A hospital bed.^[1]
6. The bed of a river or lake; a channel, álveo.^[2][12][1]
7. The roadbed of a street, road or railway.^[2][12][15]
8. (building) The face of a dressed stone that rests on the course below; a layer of mortar on which bricks or stones are laid.^[2][15]
9. (engineering) The bed of a machine.^[2]
10. (geology) A stratum.^[2]
11. (figurative, law) Marriage.^[2]
12. (Portugal) The flat bed of an ox cart.^[2][16]

Related words

• liteira
• cama
• Latin lectus
• Galician leito
• Spanish lecho

Usage notes

The leito de Procusto is the bed of the Greek myth on which Procrustes cut or stretched his victims to fit, and figuratively a rigid standard forced on everything; a leito de espinhos is a painful situation.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o 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 Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. leito
3. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. leito
4. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. leito
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. 294
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 4965
7. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 616
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. ^ 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. leito
10. ^ 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. leito
11. ^ 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, 14
12. ^ a b c d e f Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. leito
13. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. leito
14. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. leito
15. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. leito
16. ^ Wikcionário (Portuguese Wiktionary), pt.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. leito