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maravilha

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Etymology and origin of the Portuguese word maravilha

Confidence
Established
Formation
Inherited
First attested
1200s the cantigas, spelt maravilla More words from the 13th century
Inherited from
Latin mirabilia
Ultimate origin
Latin mīrus
Derivations

Pronunciation

  • Brazil: /ma.ɾaˈvi.ʎɐ/[1]
  • Portugal: /mɐ.ɾɐˈvi.ʎɐ/[1]
  • Northern, Portugal: /mɐ.ɾɐˈbi.ʎɐ/, [mɐ.ɾɐˈβi.ʎɐ][1]

Forms

maravilha f (plural maravilhas)[1] Houaiss records maravilla in the 13th century and maravilha, maraujlha and maravylha in the 14th and 15th; the Demanda do Santo Graal has marivilha.[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin mīrābilia (“wonderful things”), the neuter plural of mīrābilis (“wonderful”), and was written Old Galician-Portuguese maravilha in the oldest texts.[2][4][5][1] The /a/ of the first syllable is explained by Nascentes, following Nunes, as an assimilation of the unstressed /i/;[6] Meyer-Lübke dated the change to Latin itself.[6] The DHLF posits a popular Latin *miribilia with the /a/ assimilated to the two /i/, while Meyer-Lübke also sets up *merabilia and calls the Romance /e/ unexplained.[7][8]

The same Latin word is Galician marabilla, Spanish maravilla, Catalan meravella, French merveille and Italian meraviglia.[8][1] Corominas calls the Spanish word semi-learned, and García de Diego even takes it from Italian or the dialects.[9][10]

The Latin adjective is formed from mīror (“to wonder at”) with the suffix -bilis, from mīrus (“wonderful”).[11][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The troubadours use the word for something extraordinary: D. Dinis writes ca nunca tam gram maravilha vi “for I never saw so great a wonder”.[12] The cantigas also have the phrases teer a maravilha “to be astonished at” and por maravilha “by a miracle, hardly ever”.[3][13]

Semantic evolution

The religious sense “miracle” is recorded beside “wonder” from Pereira (1697) to Morais (1813).[14][15] Barbosa (1611) also glosses it as “astonishment”, which Houaiss still lists as a sense.[16][2] Folqman (1755) and Morais (1813) record de maravilha “very rarely”, and Morais às mil maravilhas “perfectly”, still current.[17][15][18]

Several flowers are called maravilha: Morais (1813) names a blue flower, and today the word is the four-o'clock (Mirabilis jalapa), whose flowers open in the evening, a kind of daisy and, in the plural in Portugal, the pot marigold.[15][2][18][1] From the flowers of the four-o'clock comes the colour name, a deep magenta.[2] In Brazilian cooking a maravilha is a small fried cylinder of pastry with a filling.[2][19]

Timeline

  • 13th century – first records, spelt maravilla; the word is frequent in the cantigas.[2][4][12]
  • 14th century – the spellings maravilha and maraujlha.[2]
  • 1587 – maravilhas in a private letter.[20]
  • 1611 – Barbosa glosses it with Latin admiratio and mirabilitas.[16]
  • 1697 – Pereira glosses it with miraculum and prodigium.[14]
  • 1755 – Folqman records de maravilha “rarely”.[17]
  • 1813 – Morais records às mil maravilhas and the name of a flower.[15]

Meanings

Noun

  1. Something that arouses great admiration or astonishment; a wonder, a prodígio: as maravilhas da engenharia.[2][5][1]
  2. A miracle (milagre).[21][5]
  3. An excellent person or thing: Este bolo está uma maravilha.[2][19]
  4. Perfection, excellence of the highest degree.[2]
  5. Amazement, fascination.[2][18]
  6. (botany) The four-o'clock (Mirabilis jalapa), a garden plant from Mexico with flowers that open in the evening; also a kind of daisy.[2][18][1]
  7. (Portugal, botany, in the plural) The pot marigold (Calendula officinalis).[2]
  8. (Brazil, cooking) A small cylinder of fried pastry with a savoury filling.[2][19]
  9. A deep magenta colour;[2][22] (as an adjective) of that colour.[2][22]

Word family

Usage notes

Às mil maravilhas means “very well, perfectly”, and as sete maravilhas are the Seven Wonders of the ancient world.[18][23][1]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. maravilha
  3. ^ 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. maravilha
  4. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. maravilha
  5. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. maravilha
  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. 317
  7. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. merveille
  8. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5601
  9. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. maravilla
  10. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. mirabilia
  11. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. mīrābilis
  12. ^ a b Lopes, Graça Videira; Ferreira, Manuel Pedro et al. (2011–), Cantigas Medievais Galego-Portuguesas [online database], Lisboa: Instituto de Estudos Medievais, FCSH/NOVA, https://cantigas.fcsh.unl.pt, p. s.v. maravilha
  13. ^ 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. maravilha
  14. ^ a b Pereira, Bento (1697), Thesouro da lingoa portuguesa, in the 1697 edition of his Prosodia (1st ed. 1647; CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. maravilha
  15. ^ a b c d Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 267
  16. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. maravilha
  17. ^ a b Folqman, Carlos (1755), Diccionario portuguez, e latino, Lisboa: Régia Officina Silviana (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. maravilha
  18. ^ a b c d e Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. maravilha
  19. ^ a b c 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. maravilha
  20. ^ 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. maravilha
  21. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 5949
  22. ^ a b Wikcionário (Portuguese Wiktionary), pt.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. maravilha
  23. ^ 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. maravilha

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Maravilha.” Etymologically, 15 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/pt/maravilha. Accessed 16 Nov. 2026.

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