mãe

Forms

mãe f (plural mães)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote mae and mãy, the 14th century mãe, and the 15th mãi, maj and may.^[2][3] Morais (1789, 1813) and Vieira (1871–1874) head the word mãi and refer mãe to it.^[4][5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin māter (“mother”), through changes that Cunha calls somewhat obscure.^[2][3] Houaiss and Nascentes explain it as a reduction of the full form Old Galician-Portuguese madre to a nursery form *made, then *mae, with the nasal of the first consonant spreading over the vowels, as in the Old Galician-Portuguese mãy.^[2][6][1] Carolina Michaëlis de Vasconcelos noted that the troubadours used only the full form: the childish one, which dropped the hard /r/, was not yet literary in their time.^[7] pai underwent a similar reduction from the Latin word for “father”, but without the nasal.^[1] The full form survives as the doublet madre.^[2][1]

The same Latin word is Galician nai and Galician mai, Mirandese mai, Asturian ma, Spanish madre, Catalan mare, French mère and Italian madre.^[1][8]

The Latin word continues *mātēr, from Proto-Indo-European *méh₂tēr (“mother”), whose cognates include Ancient Greek μήτηρ (mḗtēr) and Old High German muoter.^[9][1] De Vaan considers the root etymology uncertain: the word may be a derivative in *-ter- of the nursery word *ma(ma) “mum”.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss and Cunha date the word to the 13th century, in the forms mae and mãy.^[2][3] The cantigas d'amigo, where a girl often speaks to her mother, still use madre.^[7]

Semantic evolution

Cunha's 13th-century senses already include the figurative “cause, source, origin” beside “mother” and “female animal that has borne young”.^[3] Houaiss adds a person who cares for others as a mother, the home country or place where something began, and the head office or mother house of a firm or a religious order.^[2] The word also names the sediment of wine, otherwise madre, and in Brazil the water spirit called iara.^[10][11] At Elvas mãe is the bed of a river, as Spanish salir de madre “to overflow”.^[12]

Compounds include mãe de santo, mãe de família and mãe-coruja, an overprotective mother.^[2][11][1] The word passed into the Portuguese-based creoles: mai in Kabuverdianu, Guinea-Bissau Creole and Kristang, men in Sãotomense.^[1]

Timeline

• 13th century – first records, spelt mae and mãy.^[2][3]
• 14th century – the spelling mãe.^[2]
• 15th century – the spellings mãi, maj and may.^[2]
• 1504 – a private letter writes mai.^[13]
• 1789 – Morais heads the word mãi.^[4]
• 1871–1874 – Vieira still heads it mãi.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. mother, a woman who has given birth to or raises children.^[2][14][1]
2. The female of an animal that has young.^[2][10]
3. A woman who cares for others like a mother; a protector: a mãe dos órfãos.^[2][15]
4. (figurative) Source, cause, origin; the place where something began.^[2][14][1]
5. The head office of a firm, or the mother house of a religious order.^[2]
6. The lees of wine.^[10][11][1]
7. (Brazil) The water spirit iara.^[10]
8. (in compounds) Main, original, from which others come: célula-mãe, nave-mãe.^[16][1]

Word family

• mãezinha
• mãezona
• célula-mãe
• nave-mãe
• pátria-mãe
• rocha-mãe
• mãe-coruja

Related words

• comadre
• madrasta
• madre
• madrinha
• pai
• Latin māter
• Galician nai

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 j k l m n o Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. mãe
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. mãe
4. ^ 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, 48
5. ^ 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, 68
6. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. mãe
7. ^ a b 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. madre
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ 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, p. s.v. māter
10. ^ a b c d Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. mãe
11. ^ a b c Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 5836
12. ^ Instituto da Lingua Galega, Tesouro do léxico patrimonial galego e portugués (TLPGP), Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, https://ilg.usc.gal/tesouro, p. s.v. mãe
13. ^ CLUL (ed.) (2014), P.S. Post Scriptum: Arquivo Digital de Escrita Quotidiana em Portugal e Espanha na Época Moderna, Lisboa: Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, http://ps.clul.ul.pt, p. s.v. mãe
14. ^ a b Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. mãe
15. ^ 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. mãe
16. ^ 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. mãe