mármore

Forms

mármore m (plural mármores)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote marmor, marmol and marmore.^[2][3] Marmor was the usual form until the 15th century;^[2] marmore appears in the Miragres de Santiago and in one manuscript of the Crónica Geral.^[2] Houaiss also records a poetic form mármor.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *marmorem, the oblique form of Latin marmor (“marble”), and was written Old Galician-Portuguese marmor in the oldest texts.^[1][4][3] Nascentes takes it as a learned word, while Wiktionary treats it as inherited.^[5][1] The Latin noun is neuter, the Portuguese masculine.^[6][4]

The same Latin word is Galician mármore, Spanish mármol, Catalan marbre, French marbre, Italian marmo and Romanian marmură.^[7][1] Corominas notes that the Spanish word keeps its middle vowel, as popular words do in Castilian, and that its present form arose by dissimilation from older Old Spanish mármor.^[8]

Latin adapted the word from Ancient Greek μάρμαρος (mármaros).^[6][1] In Homer the Greek word means “stone, rock”, and only later “white stone, marble”.^[9] Frisk connected it with μάρναμαι (márnamai, “to fight”) and explained the sense “marble” by association with μαρμαίρω (marmaírō, “to sparkle”), which Mazon took as its source;^[9] Beekes thinks a Pre-Greek origin probable.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantigas de Santa Maria speak of “an image made of marble” (hũa omage... feita de marmor) and of “a figure of the devil carved in white marble” (hũa figura do demo que era entallada en marmor blanco).^[2] The Crónica Troiana has a wall of pedra marmor “marble stone”, and the Miragres de Santiago a penedo de marmore, a marble boulder.^[2] From the first records the word names the stone as a material for images, buildings and tombs.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Medieval prose uses the word for tombs, columns and carvings: the Crónica Troiana has a tomb of green marble flecked with gold (moymẽto de marmor verde gotado de ouro), and the Cantigas de Santa Maria use the plural pedras marmores as an adjective.^[2] Feijó glosses it simply as a very hard stone, and Morais (1789) as a limestone of many kinds used for noble buildings and statues.^[10][11]

Vieira describes it as a fine-grained limestone that takes a polish and quotes Francisco de Moraes's Palmeirim de Inglaterra for marble statues.^[12] By extension the word came to mean a work of art or a slab made of marble, and printers kept it for the table on which the formes are imposed, which was once of marble and later of metal.^[4] Figuratively it stands for whiteness, coldness or hardness of heart.^[4][13] Tetum borrowed it as mármore.^[1]

Timeline

• 13th century – marmor in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[2][3]
• 14th century – Cunha's first date for the form mármore.^[3]
• 15th century – marmor gives way to marmore.^[2]
• 1734 – Feijó lists mármore, “a very hard stone”.^[10]
• 1789 – Morais describes the stone and its use in buildings and statues.^[11]
• 1871–1874 – Vieira derives the word from Latin marmor.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. (geology) marble, a metamorphic rock of recrystallised calcite or dolomite, often veined, that can be polished: uma escadaria de mármore branco.^[4][14][1]
2. A work of art made of marble, a marble sculpture: os mármores do museu.^[4][14][1]
3. A polished piece of marble forming part of a piece of furniture, a shelf or a covering.^[4][14][15]
4. (printing) The imposing stone, the flat table on which the formes are imposed and locked up; the bed of a press.^[4][16]
5. (figurative) Something cold, hard or white like marble; coldness, insensibility.^[4][14][15]

Word family

• marmoraria

Related words

• marmorário
• marmorear
• marmóreo
• marmorista
• marmorizar
• Latin marmor
• Spanish mármol
• Galician mármore

Usage notes

De mármore “of marble” is used figuratively of what looks white or cold like marble and of a person who is not moved by anything.^[4][13]

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 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. marmor
3. ^ a b c d Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. mármore
4. ^ 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. mármore
5. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. mármore
6. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. marmor
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5368
8. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 855
9. ^ a b c Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010), Etymological Dictionary of Greek, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 10, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. μάρμαρος
10. ^ a b Feijó, João de Morais Madureira (1734), Orthographia, ou Arte de escrever, e pronunciar com acerto a lingua portugueza, Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. mármore
11. ^ 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, 60
12. ^ a b Vieira, Frei Domingos (1871–1874), Grande Diccionario Portuguez ou Thesouro da lingua portugueza, 5 vols., Porto: Ernesto Chardron e Bartholomeu H. de Moraes, p. 4, 150
13. ^ a b 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. mármore
14. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. mármore
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. mármore
16. ^ 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. mármore