mama

Forms

mama f (plural mamas)^[1] Until the 20th century it was also spelt mamma.^[2][3] Silva Bastos (1912) notes that the spelling mama had become the official one.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin mamma (“breast, udder; mother”), already written Old Galician-Portuguese mama in the oldest texts.^[5][1][6] Houaiss notes that the Latin word meant the breast of men, women and animals, a swelling on a tree, and “mummy” in children's speech.^[5]

The same Latin word is Galician mama, Spanish mama, Italian mamma and Romanian mamă, in some of them with the sense “mother”.^[7][8][1] Corominas notes that in Spanish the sense “breast” is a learned use, while the sense “mother” is inherited.^[9]

De Vaan traces it through Proto-Italic to Proto-Indo-European *mama, with cognates such as Irish mam and Welsh mam (“mother”).^[10] Wiktionary takes it either for a native nursery word or for a borrowing from Ancient Greek μάμμη (mámmē).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss dates the word to the 14th century from Cunha's medieval slips, in the sense of the milk-giving breast.^[5] Cardoso's dictionary of 1569 gives it as Latin uber, papilla and mamma.^[11]

Semantic evolution

Barbosa (1611) pairs mama with teta, and Bluteau (1712–1728) has menino de mama “suckling child”.^[12][2] Morais (1789) adds the time of suckling (os primeiros annos da mama), cabrito de mama “suckling kid” and mama de terra “hillock”, quoting Castanheda.^[13] The original Caldas Aulete warns that in the sense “breast” the word was not polite outside medical language and was replaced by peito and seios.^[14] Modern dictionaries keep the anatomical sense, the milk sucked by the baby and the period of breastfeeding.^[5][15]

Timeline

• 14th century – first records.^[5]
• 1569 – Cardoso enters mama.^[11]
• 1611 – Barbosa enters Mama, ou teta.^[12]
• 1789 – Morais records cabrito de mama and mama de terra.^[13]
• 1912 – Silva Bastos reports that mama, not mamma, is the official spelling.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. (anatomy) The milk-producing gland of mammals, atrophied in males; the mammary gland (glândula mamária).^[5][15][1]
2. (anatomy) Each of a woman's breasts; seio, peito.^[5][16]
3. The mother's or nurse's milk that a baby sucks.^[5][15]
4. The time of breastfeeding (amamentação).^[5][17]
5. The act of sucking, mamadura.^[5][16]

Word family

• maminha
• mamica

Related words

• mamar
• mamilo
• Latin mamma
• Galician mama

Usage notes

De mama means “still suckling”: leitão de mama is a suckling pig.^[5] In old Portuguese mama de terra was a hillock.^[5][13]

Nascentes records a second mama, a child's word for “mother”, which he derives from French mame; in his fuller dictionary he rejects Meyer-Lübke's derivation of the nursery word from French maman and sees it as infant onomatopoeia.^[6][18]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. mama
3. ^ 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
4. ^ a b Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. mama
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. mama
6. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. mama
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5277
8. ^ Estraviz, Isaac Alonso, Dicionário Estraviz, https://estraviz.org, p. s.v. mama
9. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 791
10. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. mama
12. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. mama
13. ^ a b c 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
14. ^ 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. mama
15. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. mama
16. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. mama
17. ^ 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. mama
18. ^ 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