livro

Forms

livro m (plural livros, diminutive livrinho, augmentative livrão)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote livro and lyvro;^[2][3] Houaiss also records libros in the 15th century.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin liber (“bark of a tree; book”), written Old Galician-Portuguese livro and Old Galician-Portuguese lyvro in the oldest texts.^[2][4][3] Wiktionary treats it as an early borrowing of the Latin accusative rather than an inherited word, and Corominas finds a learned form of the word in every Romance language: Spanish libro, Italian libro, Catalan llibre, Occitan libre and French livre.^[1][5]

In Latin the word first meant the inner bark of a tree, which the Romans used to write on, and then “book”.^[6][7] It goes back to *luβros and Proto-Indo-European *lubʰ-ró-s, meaning “leaf, rind” according to de Vaan, from the root *lewbʰ- (“to peel”).^[6][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss quotes a doubtful record of liuros in a Latin document of 1013.^[2] In the Cantigas de Santa Maria the word is a written book: the Virgin gives a man un lyvro, a devout man reads a whole large book every day, and the collection itself is o livro das Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Bluteau already explained the word from the Latin name of the inner bark on which people once wrote.^[8] Morais (1789) adds the sense “part of a work”, the division of a long text, and the registers of the king's household, livros d'el-rei.^[9] Aulete's original dictionary has the figurative “anything that teaches like a book”, as in o livro da natureza, and the commercial account book.^[10] Silva Bastos (1912) records the anatomical sense, one of the stomachs of ruminants, the omasum, named after its leaf-like folds.^[11][1] In Rio Grande do Sul the livro of a ranch is the register of the cattle and of the sales.^[12]

The word passed into Kabuverdianu as libru and into Tetum as livru.^[1]

Timeline

• 1013 – liuros in a Latin document, a doubtful record.^[2]
• 13th century – livro and lyvro in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[3][4]
• 1513 – first record in the CTA, in the Livro dos Mártires.^[13]
• 1611 – Barbosa gives livro with Latin liber and codex, and the diminutive livrinho.^[14]
• 1712 – Bluteau derives the word from the Latin for the inner bark of trees.^[8]
• 1789 – Morais defines the book as a collection of written or printed quires.^[9]
• 1912 – Silva Bastos records the sense “stomach of ruminants”.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. A book: sheets of paper, printed or not, bound together along one edge in a cover.^[2][15][1]
2. A literary, scientific or artistic work forming a volume, in any medium: um livro de poemas.^[2][10]
3. Each volume of a work; each of the parts into which a long work is divided, as the books of the Bible.^[2][16]
4. A register or notebook for records: livro de ponto, livro de reclamações.^[2][1]
5. A collection of diplomatic documents published by a government on one subject.^[2]
6. A set of sheets of any material bound like a book, such as a book of samples or of cigarette papers.^[2][17]
7. (figurative) Something that can be read or interpreted like a book.^[2][10]
8. (zoology) The omasum, the third stomach of ruminants.^[2][1]

Word family

• livraria
• livreco
• livreiro
• livresco
• livrete
• livrão
• livro-texto
• marca-livro

Related words

• líber
• livreto
• Latin liber
• Galician libro

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 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. livro
3. ^ 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. livro
4. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. livro
5. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 643
6. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
7. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. libro
8. ^ 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. livro
9. ^ 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, 10
10. ^ a b c Aulete, Francisco Júlio Caldas, Dicionário contemporâneo da língua portuguesa (1st ed. 1881), online as Aulete Digital, Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, https://aulete.com.br, p. s.v. livro
11. ^ a b Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. livro
12. ^ Schlee, Aldyr Garcia (2019), Dicionário da Cultura Pampeana Sul-Rio-Grandense, 2 vols., Pelotas: Fructos do Paiz, p. s.v. livro
13. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. livro
14. ^ Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. livro
15. ^ Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. livro
16. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 5736
17. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. livro