malvado

Forms

malvado (feminine malvada, masculine plural malvados, feminine plural malvadas, comparable, comparative mais malvado, superlative o mais malvado or malvadíssimo)^[1] The 13th-century poets used malvaz, a Provençalism;^[2][3] malvado and maluado are recorded from the 15th century.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Old Occitan malvat, according to Houaiss, Cunha and the original Caldas Aulete.^[3][4][5] Houaiss gives the Old Provençal nominative malvatz.^[3] Wiktionary has it come through Spanish malvado, Cortesão derived it from Spanish too, and Nascentes and Aurélio name Catalan malvat as the go-between.^[1][6][7][8] The Occitan word goes back to Late Latin malifātius (“ill-fated, unfortunate”), formed from malus (“bad”) and fātum (“fate”).^[3][1][9] Adolfo Coelho and Silva Bastos derived it from Latin male (“badly”) and the participle of levō (“to raise”).^[6][10]

Corominas takes the Spanish word from the Occitan one too, and compares the shift from “unfortunate” to “wicked” with that of “miserable” in many languages.^[11][12] The 13th-century Old Galician-Portuguese malvaz of the cantigas is the Occitan nominative.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Cunha dates the word to the 13th century.^[4] The Cantigas de Santa Maria call the Jews and the Moors o poboo malvaz “the wicked people” and the devil o demo malvaz.^[2] Afonso X uses the same phrase in a satirical cantiga, where the editors mark it as a Provençalism.^[2] Houaiss's first record of malvado itself is from the 15th century.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Nascentes explains the meaning as a shift from “unfortunate” to “the cause of someone's misfortune”, as in miserável.^[7] Bluteau (1712) and Morais (1789) define it simply as bad, wicked, of evil inclination.^[13][14] The noun o Malvado, “the Devil”, is often capitalised.^[3][5]

Timeline

• 13th century – malvaz in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[2][4]
• 15th century – malvado and maluado.^[3]
• 1607 – the feminine malvada in a private letter.^[15]
• 1712 – Bluteau glosses it Latin improbus.^[13]
• 1789 – Morais: “bad, wicked, ill-inclined”.^[14]

Meanings

Adjective

1. wicked, cruel, perverse; capable of cruel acts.^[3][8][1]

Noun

1. A wicked person, an evildoer.^[3][8][1]
2. The devil (diabo), often capitalised.^[3][9]

Related words

• mau
• fado
• Spanish malvado

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. malvaz
3. ^ 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. malvado
4. ^ a b c Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. malvado
5. ^ 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. malvado
6. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 312
7. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. malvado
8. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. malvado
9. ^ 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. malvado
10. ^ Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. malvado
11. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 788
12. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. malvado
13. ^ 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. malvado
14. ^ 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, 47
15. ^ 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. malvado