lodo

Forms

lodo m (plural lodos)^[1] Cunha records the 13th-century spelling ludo before lodo in the 14th.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin lutum (“mud, dirt, clay”), written Old Galician-Portuguese ludo and then Old Galician-Portuguese lodo in the old texts.^[3][2][1][4]

The same Latin noun is Romanian lut, Italian loto, Sardinian ludu (“potter's clay”), Occitan lot, Catalan llot, Spanish lodo and Galician lodo.^[5][6] The Spanish word is recorded from 1209, first in a proper name.^[7]

De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Indo-European *l(H)u-to- (“dirt”) for the Latin word, with cognates in Old Irish loth (“dirt”), Ancient Greek λῦμα (lûma, “dirty water, moral filth”) and Lithuanian liutýnas (“loam pit”).^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss dates the word to the 13th century from the index of medieval Portuguese, and Cunha has the form ludo in that century.^[3][2] It appears in the Horto do Esposo of about 1430.^[9] Cardoso glosses it with the Latin lutum in 1569, and Barbosa in 1611 with lodo, ou lama “mud, or mire”.^[10][11]

Semantic evolution

Bluteau describes it as wet, dirty earth like that of the streets and of the bottom of wells, tanks and rivers.^[12] Morais records the phrase pôr-se de lodo “to rest, to do nothing”.^[13] The figurative sense “degradation, baseness” is already in Vieira's examples and is current today.^[14][3]

In Portuguese slang the word has meant gold, or gold and silver.^[15][3] In northern Brazil fishermen use it for the seaweed found on beaches.^[3] The derivative lodaçal “quagmire” is recorded from 1679, and enlodar “to cover in mud” from the 15th century.^[16][17]

Timeline

• 13th century – first record, as ludo.^[2][3]
• 14th century – the spelling lodo.^[2]
• c. 1430 – lodo in the Horto do Esposo (witness of 1390–1437).^[9]
• 15th century – the derivatives lodoso and enlodar.^[18][17]
• 1569 – Cardoso glosses lodo with the Latin lutum.^[10]
• 1679 – first record of lodaçal.^[16]
• 1813 – Morais records pôr-se de lodo “to sit idle”.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. mud, silt: earth mixed with decaying organic matter that settles at the bottom of the sea, rivers and lakes; lama.^[3][19][1]
2. (figurative) What degrades or dishonours; baseness, degradation.^[3][20]
3. (northern Brazil, fishing) Seaweed found on beaches.^[3]
4. (Portugal, slang) Gold or silver; money.^[3][21]

Word family

• lodaçal
• enlodar

Related words

• lodoso
• lutulento
• Latin lutum
• Spanish lodo

Usage notes

A separate noun lodo, with an open /ó/ and the plural lodos also with /ó/, means the lótus or the nettle tree, lódão.^[20][22][3] It comes from the Latin lotus, from the Greek lōtós.^[1][20][23] Wiktionary marks the word as a second etymology of the same spelling, and Wikcionário records it in Trás-os-Montes for the tree Celtis australis.^[1][24]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. lodo
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. lodo
4. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. s.v. lodo
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5189
6. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. lutum
7. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 687
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 Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. lodo
10. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. lodo
11. ^ Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. lodo
12. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. lodo
13. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 233
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, 1332
15. ^ Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. lodo
16. ^ a b Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. lodaçal
17. ^ a b Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. enlodar
18. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. lodoso
19. ^ 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. lodo
20. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. lodo
21. ^ 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. lodo
22. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. lodo
23. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5131a
24. ^ Wikcionário (Portuguese Wiktionary), pt.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. lodo