lenda

Forms

lenda f (plural lendas)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote leenda.^[2] Houaiss records leemda and lemda in the 15th century.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Medieval Latin legenda (“a saint's life; a reading”), written Old Galician-Portuguese leenda in the oldest texts.^[3][4][1][5] The Medieval Latin word is the neuter plural of the gerundive of Latin legō (“to gather; to read”), “things to be read”, taken as a feminine singular.^[1][6] Bluteau explained that the lives of the saints were so called because they were read in the lessons of Matins and in the refectories of religious houses.^[7] The Portuguese word lost the /g/ between vowels, and the two vowels of the old form then merged.^[8][3] The learned doublet keeps the Latin spelling.^[1]

The same word is Spanish leyenda, Old Spanish leenda, Sardinian lenda and Old Italian lienda (“a tedious story”).^[9][10] The Latin verb goes back to Proto-Italic *legō and Proto-Indo-European *leǵ- (“to gather”), and is cognate with Ancient Greek λέγω (légō, “to speak, to choose”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the Cantigas de Santa Maria the word is a text for reading in the liturgy: Quaes cantarán / a missa que converria, / ou quaes dirán / toda a outra leenda “who will sing the proper Mass, or who will say all the rest of the reading”.^[2] The Crónica Geral uses it for a written law or scripture, toda a leenda dos mouros “all the scripture of the Moors”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The early modern dictionaries still connect the word with reading: Cardoso (1569) translates it with Latin lectio “reading”, Pereira (1697) with scriptum “writing”, and Bluteau (1712–1728) and Morais (1813) define it as the written life of a saint.^{[11][12][7][13]} Morais also records ler a lenda a alguém “to read someone his legend”, that is, to tell him his faults.^[13] Vieira (1871–1874) defines it as a book of the acts of the saints.^[14]

The modern sense, a traditional story in which history is transformed by popular or poetic imagination, came later; from it the word went on to mean a lie and a long, tedious story.^[3][15] Today it also names a person of extraordinary achievement, and lenda urbana an urban legend.^[1]

Timeline

• 13th century – leenda in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[2][3]
• 15th century – the spellings leemda and lemda.^[3]
• 1513 – lenda and leenda in the Livro dos Mártires.^[16][17]
• 1569 – Cardoso glosses lenda as lectio.^[11]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau explains the word from the readings of saints' lives.^[7]
• 1813 – Morais records ler a lenda a alguém.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. A legend, a traditional story in which real events are transformed by popular or poetic imagination: Os velhos da aldeia contam uma lenda sobre o castelo.^[3][1]
2. A popular tradition (tradição).^[3][6]
3. A tale about marvellous beings of the popular imagination, often explaining a natural phenomenon (compare mito).^[3]
4. A recent popular myth built around a person or event.^[3]
5. A person of extraordinary achievement, a legend.^[1]
6. (figurative) A lie, a fraud.^[3][18]
7. (figurative) A long, tedious story.^[3][15]
8. (dated) The life of a saint, legenda.^[3][18]

Word family

• lendário
• lenda urbana

Related words

• legenda
• legendário
• ler
• Latin legō
• Spanish leyenda

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. leenda
3. ^ 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. lenda
4. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. lenda
5. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. lenda
6. ^ a b Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. lenda
7. ^ a b c Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. lenda
8. ^ 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
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 4969
10. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. legenda
11. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. lenda
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. lenda
13. ^ a b c Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 214
14. ^ Vieira, Frei Domingos (1871–1874), Grande Diccionario Portuguez ou Thesouro da lingua portugueza, 5 vols., Porto: Ernesto Chardron e Bartholomeu H. de Moraes, p. 3, 1286
15. ^ a b 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. lenda
16. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. lenda
17. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. leenda
18. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. lenda