mancha

Forms

mancha f (plural manchas, diminutive manchinha, augmentative manchona)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *mancla, from Latin macula (“spot, stain”).^[2][3][1] The unstressed vowel of the Latin word was lost, and the resulting cluster /kl/ became /ʃ/, written ⟨ch⟩, as in other words of the language; the nasal of the first consonant spread to the stressed vowel.^[3][4] Corominas dates this spread of nasality early, to a form *mangla or the form above, which regularly gave the word in both Spanish and Portuguese;^[5][4] Meyer-Lübke instead took the Portuguese word from Spanish.^[5][4]

The same Latin word is Spanish mancha, Galician mancha, Asturian mancha and Italian macchia.^[6][1] Portuguese has it three more times: in the learned word for “blemish”, in the old popular mágoa “grief”, first “stain”, and in malha “mesh”, taken through French and Occitan.^[7][3][6]

De Vaan reconstructs *smatlo- for the Latin word and considers a link with Ancient Greek σμάω (smáō, “to wipe clean”) possible, the stain being something smeared on;^[8][1] Wiktionary gives the same proposal.^[8][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Galician Crónica Troiana, where a horse is todo rodado de manchas “all dappled with spots”.^[9] Houaiss and Cunha date the word to the 14th century.^[3][2]

Semantic evolution

The dictionaries of the 16th and 17th centuries render the word by Latin macula.^[10][11] Bluteau gives the physical stain, the spot of an animal's coat (malha) and the moral blot on a reputation, with a quotation from António Vieira, and discusses the sunspots, manchas do Sol.^[12] Painters use it for a touch of colour and a quick sketch, printers for the printed part of a page.^[3][13]

Silva Bastos (1912) records a Brazilian sense, a disease of tobacco, and an Alentejo one, a patch of scrub left standing in cleared land where game is easily caught; the lair of the wild boar is also a mancha.^[14][3] In Brazil the word also names anthrax of cattle and, regionally, a stand of trees or a patch of land of a given kind.^[3][15]

Timeline

• 14th century – manchas in the Crónica Troiana; the verb manchar is recorded in the same century.^[9][3][16]
• 1538 – mãcha in a private letter.^[17]
• 1569 – Cardoso renders mancha by Latin macula.^[10]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau gives the moral sense and the sunspots.^[12]
• 1789 – Morais lists the stain, the spot of a coat and the moral blot.^[18]
• 1912 – Silva Bastos records the tobacco disease of Brazil and the Alentejo hunting sense.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. A stain, a mark left by a substance that dirties something: Ficou uma mancha de vinho na toalha.^[3][13][1]
2. A spot or patch of a different colour, as on an animal's coat (malha); in medicine, a flat discoloured patch of skin.^[3][13]
3. (painting) A colour sketch for a picture; a single brushstroke (pincelada).^[3][13]
4. (printing) The printed area of a page, as opposed to the margins.^[3][13]
5. A flaw or defect.^[3][19]
6. (figurative) A blemish on a reputation, a disgrace: uma carreira sem manchas.^[3][20][1]
7. (Brazil) A stand of trees, a small wood.^[3]
8. (Alentejo) A patch of scrub left standing in cleared ground, where game is driven.^[3][20]
9. The lair of the wild boar.^[3][21]
10. A disease of tobacco.^[3][14]
11. (Brazil, veterinary) anthrax of cattle.^[3][15]

Word family

• manchar
• manchado
• manchinha

Related words

• imaculado
• mácula
• maculado
• malha
• mágoa
• Latin macula
• Spanish mancha

Usage notes

Mancha solar is a sunspot.^[3][1] The capitalised Mancha of Canal da Mancha, the English Channel, is a different word, from French Manche.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. mancha
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. mancha
4. ^ a b c Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 313
5. ^ a b Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 797
6. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5212
7. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. mácula
8. ^ 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. macula
9. ^ 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. mancha
10. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. mancha
11. ^ Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. mancha
12. ^ 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. mancha
13. ^ a b c d e Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. mancha
14. ^ 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. mancha
15. ^ a b Schlee, Aldyr Garcia (2019), Dicionário da Cultura Pampeana Sul-Rio-Grandense, 2 vols., Pelotas: Fructos do Paiz, p. s.v. mancha
16. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. manchar
17. ^ 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. mancha
18. ^ 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, 50
19. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 5895
20. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. mancha
21. ^ 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. mancha