música

Forms

música f (plural músicas)^[1] Older texts also write musyca (1545) and muzica (1741).^[2][3] A Portuguese dialect survey records múseca.^[4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin mūsica (“music”), from Ancient Greek μουσική (mousikḗ), short for “the art of the Muses”, from μουσικός (mousikós, “of the Muses; musical”), from Μοῦσα (Moûsa, “Muse”).^[5][6][1][7] Houaiss notes the Doric form μουσικά (mousiká).^[5] By surface analysis it is musa with the suffix -ica.^[1]

The Greek word meant any art over which the Muses presided, especially poetry sung to music, and the Latin one could still mean every higher kind of artistic or learned culture.^[7][8] The same Latin word is Spanish música, Galician música and Catalan música.^[1][9] The DLE suggests that murga “a band of street musicians” may come from a semi-popular *musga.^[10]

Semantic evolution

Houaiss and Cunha date the word to the 14th century.^[5][6] Bluteau, in 1712, treats music philosophically as harmony, divided into divine, angelic and worldly.^[11] Morais in 1813 defines it as the art that teaches to sing and play harmoniously, and adds “a concert of voices or instruments” (dar musicas) and the figurative “harmony”.^[12] The older Aulete records the sense “the musicians of a band”, and in Portugal a música is the local brass band.^[13][4]

Figurative and informal senses are recent: a tedious, repeated complaint, and “the same old song” in lá vem a mesma música.^[5][14] Houaiss records “a pregnant woman” as informal in Portugal and “money” in Trás-os-Montes, and the Porto Editora dictionary “smooth talk, patter”.^[5][4][15] Cunha dates musicar to 1813 and musical to 1873.^[6] The word passed into Papiamentu as musika and into Tetum as muzika.^[1]

Timeline

• 1300s – first records.^[5][6]
• 1545 – musyca in a private letter.^[2]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau's long article on music as harmony.^[11]
• 1813 – Morais adds “a concert” and “a woman who knows music”; first record of musicar.^[12][6]
• 1873 – first record of musical.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. music, the art of combining sounds with rhythm, melody and harmony.^[5][16][1]
2. A piece of music, a song: Esta música passa sempre na rádio.^[5][16][1]
3. The performance of a piece of music.^[5][16]
4. Written music, a score.^[5][16]
5. A body of musicians, a band.^[5][13][4]
6. Any pleasing succession of sounds; musicality: a música das ondas.^[5][1]
7. (figurative, pejorative) A tiresome, endless complaint; something said over and over.^[5][14]
8. (Portugal, informal) A pregnant woman.^[5]
9. (Trás-os-Montes, informal) money.^[5][4]
10. (colloquial) Smooth talk, patter.^[15]

Word family

• musical
• musicalidade
• musicar
• musicista
• musicologia
• musicólogo
• musiqueta
• musicastro

Related words

• musa
• músico
• Latin mūsica

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b 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. música
3. ^ NEHiLP – Núcleo de Apoio à Pesquisa em Etimologia e História da Língua Portuguesa, Universidade de São Paulo, DELPo: Dicionário Etimológico da Língua Portuguesa (online database), p. s.v. música
4. ^ a b c d e 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. música
5. ^ 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. música
6. ^ a b c d e f Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. música
7. ^ a b Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. μουσική
8. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. mūsica
9. ^ Estraviz, Isaac Alonso, Dicionário Estraviz, https://estraviz.org, p. s.v. música
10. ^ Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. murga
11. ^ 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. música
12. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 330
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. música
14. ^ a b 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. música
15. ^ a b Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 6395
16. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. música