maça

Forms

maça f (plural maças)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *mattea (“club”).^[2][3] Houaiss prefers the spelling *matea, and Machado and Wiktionary a form mattia, which Wiktionary records as Late Latin.^[4][5][3][1] It is generally taken as a back-formation from Latin mateola (“wooden hammer, mallet”).^[2][3][4] Corominas notes that the Latin word occurs only twice, in Cato, for a mallet used to drive in a cutting.^[2]

The same Vulgar Latin word is Spanish maza, Catalan maça, French masse and Italian mazza.^[6][1]

De Vaan explains the Latin word as a diminutive of a noun meaning “hoe”, from Proto-Indo-European *mot- (“club, hoe”), with cognates such as Old High German medela (“plough”); he connects it, more tentatively, with the verb metō (“to reap”).^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Machado dates the word to 1361, from a surname;^[8] Lorenzo's chronology quotes a document of that year with hua maça d'açeyro “a mace of steel”.^[8] The Crónica Troiana speaks of men who will strike de lanças et de maças et de espadas “with lances and maces and swords”, and a cantiga d'escarnho of Afonso Lopez de Baian mocks a knight's maça de fuste, que lhi pende do arçon “wooden mace that hangs from his saddle-bow”.^[8][9] From the start, then, it was a knight's weapon.^[8]

Semantic evolution

The weapon gave the word its ceremonial and working senses: Folqman lists in 1755 the paver's rammer, maça de calceteiro, and the mace carried by the beadle of the university or the porter of a cathedral chapter.^[10] The tool for beating flax and the juggler's club are later senses.^[4][11] Regional uses include the hub of a cart wheel in the Alentejo and in Rio Grande do Sul, and maça da perna “thigh” in Trás-os-Montes.^[12][13]

The derivatives maço “mallet” (13th century) and maçar “to beat with a mace or mallet” (15th century) are derived from it;^[5] maçar also means “to pester”.^[5]

Timeline

• 1361 – hua maça d'açeyro in a dated document;^[8] Machado's first record, a surname, is from the same year.^[8]
• 14th century – Houaiss's first date, from Cunha.^[4][5]
• c. 1430 – maça in the Horto do Esposo (copied 1390–1437).^[14]
• 1734 – Feijó observes that Pereira writes maça both for the club and for dough.^[15]
• 1755 – Folqman records the paver's rammer and the beadle's mace.^[10]
• 1912 – Silva Bastos records the Alentejo sense “hub of a wheel”.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. A club, a heavy stick thicker at one end, used as a weapon.^[4][16][1]
2. A mace, a medieval weapon with a heavy iron head set with spikes.^[4][16][1]
3. A paver's rammer, a cylindrical wooden pestle used to set paving stones evenly.^[4][16]
4. A tool for beating flax.^[4][16]
5. A bottle-shaped wooden club used by jugglers and in rhythmic gymnastics.^[4][17]
6. (historical) A ceremonial mace carried in processions by a maceiro.^[16]
7. A wooden mallet with two heads; a drumstick for the bass drum.^[11][18]
8. (music) The same as maçaneta.^[4]
9. (regional) The hub of a cart wheel.^[12][13]

Word family

• maço
• maçar
• maceta
• macete
• maçaneta

Related words

• Latin mateola
• Spanish maza
• Italian mazza

Usage notes

The word should not be confused with maçã “apple” or massa “dough”.^[19] The old dictionaries often spelt massa as maça: Bluteau and Vieira head “dough” under maça, and Feijó complained that Pereira used one spelling for both words.^[20][21][15]

In Angola maça is also a name for maize; the DLP treats it as a separate noun of obscure origin.^[4][17]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 893
3. ^ a b c Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. maça
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. maça
5. ^ a b c d Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. maça
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
7. ^ 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. mateola
8. ^ 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. maça
9. ^ Universo Cantigas: Glosario da poesía medieval profana galego-portuguesa, A Coruña: Instituto da Lingua e Literatura (ILLA), Universidade da Coruña, https://www.universocantigas.gal, p. s.v. maça
10. ^ a b Folqman, Carlos (1755), Diccionario portuguez, e latino, Lisboa: Régia Officina Silviana (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. maça
11. ^ 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. maça
12. ^ a b c Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. maça
13. ^ a b Schlee, Aldyr Garcia (2019), Dicionário da Cultura Pampeana Sul-Rio-Grandense, 2 vols., Pelotas: Fructos do Paiz, p. s.v. maça
14. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. maça
15. ^ 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. maça
16. ^ a b c d e Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. maça
17. ^ 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. maça
18. ^ 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. maça
19. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. maça
20. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. maça
21. ^ 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, 7