Etymologically
Log in

ligeiro

History Permalink

Etymology and origin of the Portuguese word ligeiro

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
1200s the cantigas d'escarnho More words from the 13th century
Borrowed from
Old French legier
Ultimate origin
Latin levis

Pronunciation

  • Brazil: /liˈʒe(j).ɾu/, [liˈʒe(ɪ̯).ɾu][1]
  • Portugal: /liˈʒɐj.ɾu/[1]
  • Northern, Portugal: /liˈʒej.ɾu/[1]
  • Central, Portugal: /liˈʒej.ɾu/[1]

Forms

ligeiro (feminine ligeira, masculine plural ligeiros, feminine plural ligeiras)[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote ligeiro, legeiro and ligeyro; the 15th century has lygeiro, lligeiro and lijeira.[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Old French legier (“light, nimble”), the source of modern French léger.[2][3][4][1] The French word comes from Vulgar Latin *leviārius, derived from levis (“light”).[3][5][1] Nascentes reports that Nunes, Cortesão and Adolfo Coelho took the Portuguese word straight from the Vulgar Latin form, and Pacheco and Lameira from Latin āliger (“winged”), but holds that only French explains the ⟨g⟩.[6]

French also lent the word to Spanish ligero, first recorded in 1220–1250, and Italian leggiero; Catalan lleuger and Old Occitan leugier are the native forms.[7][8] Wiktionary names the native Portuguese leveiro as a doublet.[1]

De Vaan traces the Latin adjective to Proto-Indo-European *h₁legʷʰ-u- (“light”), with cognates such as Ancient Greek ἐλαχύς (elakhús, “small”).[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first records, of the 13th century, are in the cantigas.[2][3] In the cantigas d'escarnho Afonso X wants a tune bõo son e ligeiro de dizer “good and easy to sing”, King Denis praises a ligeiro cavalgador, a nimble rider, and Afonso Mendez de Besteiros uses preço de ligeiro for a reputation as a coward.[10][11] The Cantigas de Santa Maria have navios ligeyros e corredores, light, fast ships.[10]

Semantic evolution

Cunha gives the older senses as “easy” and “fickle”, later “light”, “nimble”, “fast” and “frivolous”.[3] The phrase de ligeiro “easily” is already in the Cantigas de Santa Maria, and Morais still records crer de ligeiro “to believe lightly”.[10][12] Bluteau in 1712 gives ligeiro de pés “swift-footed” and cavallaria ligeira, light cavalry.[13]

Modern senses include “slight, barely noticed”, “easily digested” and, of the arts, “meant to entertain”.[2][14] As a noun it names a light motor vehicle in Portugal, the wether that leads a flock in Estremadura, and the rower of an Amazonian canoe in Brazil.[15][16]

Timeline

  • 13th century – ligeiro, legeiro and ligeyros in the cantigas.[2][10]
  • 1431 – the Vida do honrado Infante Josafat has the word.[17]
  • 15th century – the spellings lygeiro, lligeiro and lijeira.[2]
  • 1569 – Cardoso glosses it with Latin velox and agilis.[18]
  • 1679 – first record of aligeirar.[19]
  • 1712 – Bluteau records cavallaria ligeira.[13]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. quick, fast, swift: passos ligeiros.[2][20][1]
  2. nimble, agile, deft in movement.[2][20][1]
  3. Light (leve) in weight or density; thin, delicate: tecido ligeiro;[20][15][1] (of food) easy to digest.[20][15][1]
  4. Slight, barely perceptible; fleeting: uma ligeira dor de cabeça.[2][21]
  5. Superficial (superficial); frivolous, fickle, not serious.[20][14]
  6. (military) Lightly armed and quick to move: cavalaria ligeira, artilharia ligeira.[22][13]

Noun

  1. (Portugal) A light motor vehicle, a car for passengers below a legal weight.[15][14]
  2. (Brazil, Amazonia) A rower of an igarité canoe.[16][21]
  3. (boxing) A lightweight.[1]

Adverb

  1. Quickly, nimbly.[15][1]

Word family

  • aligeirar
  • ligeireza
  • ligeiramente
  • ligeirice

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. ligeiro
  3. ^ a b c d e Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. ligeiro
  4. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. ligeiro
  5. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. léger
  6. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 299
  7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5003
  8. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. ligero
  9. ^ 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 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. ligeiro
  11. ^ 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. ligeiro
  12. ^ Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 224
  13. ^ 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. ligeiro
  14. ^ a b c Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 5684
  15. ^ a b c d e 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. ligeiro
  16. ^ a b Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. ligeiro
  17. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. ligeiro
  18. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. ligeiro
  19. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. aligeirar
  20. ^ a b c d e Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. ligeiro
  21. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. ligeiro
  22. ^ 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. ligeiro

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Ligeiro.” Etymologically, 15 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/pt/ligeiro. Accessed 16 Nov. 2026.

Last edited on . ·