luz

Forms

luz f (plural luzes)^[1] Houaiss records lux beside luz in the 14th century, and Lorenzo's chronology has lux in the 15th.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin lūx (“light”), and the medieval texts already write Old Galician-Portuguese luz.^[2][4][5][1] The Latin noun also meant “daylight, day”, and figuratively “publicity” and “brilliance”.^[2]

The same Latin word is Galician luz, Spanish luz, Occitan lutz and Italian luce.^[6][1] Corominas notes that it survives in all the Romance languages except Romanian and French, and that it soon went out of use in Occitan and Catalan.^[7]

The Latin word goes back to *louks and Proto-Indo-European *lewk- (“white, light, bright”); its cognates include Ancient Greek λευκός (leukós, “white, bright”) and Old English lēoht.^[1] Latin formed many derivatives on it, among them lūmen (“light”), lucerna (“oil lamp”) and lūceō (“to shine”).^[8] Portuguese also has the learned lux, the unit of illumination, taken from the same Latin word.^[4][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

As a man's byname Luz appears in Latin charters from 1047 on (Gundisalbo Luz in 1076).^[3] In the Galician-Portuguese texts the word is recorded from the 13th century: the Cantigas de Santa Maria call the Virgin “Santa Maria, who is light”, use ante da luz for “before daybreak”, and say of a knight that he regained his luz, his sight.^[3][4] The Crónica Troiana uses a luz for daylight.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Houaiss dates the sense “power of sight” to the 13th century.^[2] Barbosa (1611) lists luzeyro and the verb luzir beside the noun, and the phrase tirar a luz ás janelas “to block the light of the windows”.^[9] Morais (1789) gives the senses “light that comes from the sun or a flame”, “a lighted candle”, and the phrases dar á luz “to publish; to give birth” and á luz da razão.^[10] Modern dictionaries add technical senses (the space inside a tube or artery, an opening that admits light, the span of an arch) and, colloquially, electric power.^[2][11][1] In Brazil the word is also informal for money.^[2]

Timeline

• 1047 – luz as a byname in a Latin charter.^[3]
• 13th century – the Cantigas de Santa Maria use luz for light, daybreak and sight.^[3][2]
• 14th century – the spelling lux is recorded.^[2]
• 14th century – first record of the derivatives luzeiro and luzente.^[4]
• c. 1430 – first record in the CTA corpus, in the Horto do Esposo.^[12]
• 1569 – Cardoso renders luz with Latin lux.^[13]
• 1789 – Morais records dar á luz “to publish; to give birth”.^[10]
• 1871 – Vieira defines light as the agent that makes things visible.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. light, the radiation that makes things visible; in physics, the electromagnetic radiation the eye is sensitive to.^[2][11][1]
2. The light of the sun, daylight; the brightness given off by the stars or reflected by the moon and planets.^[2][15]
3. A source of light: a lamp, a candle, a light used as a signal.^[2][15][1]
4. (colloquial) Electric power, electricity: faltou a luz.^[16][1]
5. The power of sight.^[2]
6. (figurative) Knowledge, understanding, enlightenment; also public knowledge, in trazer à luz and vir à luz.^[2][15][1]
7. (figurative) A brilliant person, a luminar.^[2]
8. (religion) Spiritual illumination; divine truth, the faith.^[2][15]
9. (anatomy) The space inside a tubular organ, the lumen.^[2][4]
10. (architecture) An opening that lets the light in; the span between the supports of an arch or beam.^[2]
11. (Brazil, informal) Money.^[2]

Word family

• luzeiro
• contraluz
• meia-luz

Related words

• lúcido
• lucífero
• luzerna
• lúzio
• luzir
• lume
• lux
• Latin lūx
• Galician luz

Usage notes

Dar à luz means “to give birth”;^[10][15] Morais (1789) records it with its older sense “to publish” as well.^[10][15]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m 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 r Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. luz
3. ^ a b c d e f 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. luz
4. ^ a b c d e Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. luz
5. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. luz
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5190
7. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 718
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. ^ Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. luz
10. ^ a b c d 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, 37
11. ^ 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. luz
12. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. luz
13. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. luz
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, 1356
15. ^ a b c d e f Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 5797
16. ^ Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. luz