marmelada

Forms

marmelada f (plural marmeladas)^[1] A letter of 1544 spells it marmellada.^[2]

Etymology

It is formed from Portuguese marmelo (“quince”) + -ada, “something made of quinces”.^[3][4][1][5]

The noun for the quince comes from Vulgar Latin *melimellum, for Latin melimēlum (“a kind of very sweet apple”), from Ancient Greek μελίμηλον (melímēlon), a compound of μέλι (méli, “honey”) and μῆλον (mêlon, “apple”).^[6][4][1] Its cognates are Galician marmelo and Spanish membrillo.^[1]

Houaiss suggests that the Brazilian senses “dishonest deal” and “fixed match” come from the fraudulent practice of padding the sweet with chuchu.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss dates the word to 1521.^[3] The DHLF gives the same year for the Portuguese word as the source of the French one, glossing it “quince jam”.^[7] Cardoso's Portuguese–Latin dictionary of 1569 translates it by cotoneatus, a quince preserve.^[8]

Semantic evolution

Bluteau (1712–1728) describes the common kind as quince quarters cooked and passed through a sieve with sugar, and also a jelly of quinces.^[9] Morais (1813) distinguishes it from the thinner geléa made of the same fruit, and Vieira (1871–1874) says that the dried paste was cut into blocks called ladrilhos in some provinces.^[10][11]

Figurative senses came later: popular marmelada “a bargain, an advantage”, and in Brazil “a dishonest deal” and “a match whose result has been fixed”.^[3][12][13] In Portugal and Mozambique estar na marmelada is to be kissing and cuddling.^[3][14] The name also passed to several Brazilian plants and fruits.^[3][15]

Cunha notes that the word passed into the other European languages with a wider sense, any fruit paste or jam.^[4] French borrowed it as marmelade in the 16th century, Italian as marmellata (1579), Spanish as mermelada, and through French it reached English (the English word marmalade, 1530s), German, Dutch, the Scandinavian languages and Russian.^{[7][16][17][18][1]}

Timeline

• 1521 – first record.^[3]
• 1530s – the English word marmalade is recorded, from French.^[18]
• 1544 – marmellada in a private letter.^[2]
• 16th century – French borrows it as marmelade.^[7]
• 1569 – Cardoso's dictionary lists it.^[8]
• 1579 – Italian marmellata in a letter of Filippo Sassetti.^[16]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau describes how it is made.^[9]
• 1871–1874 – Vieira explains it as a suffixed derivative of marmelo.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. (cooking) quince paste or quince cheese, a firm sweet of quinces cooked in sugar syrup and sieved.^[3][12][1]
2. (informal) A bargain, a profit or advantage.^[3][12][14]
3. (Brazil, informal) A dishonest business deal; mamata.^[3][12]
4. (Brazil, informal) A prior and dishonest arrangement about the result of a match or contest: O campeonato acabou em marmelada.^[3][12][1]
5. (Portugal, Mozambique, informal) Kissing and cuddling between lovers.^[3][19]
6. (Portugal, figurative) A muddle, a confusion.^[14][20]
7. (Brazil, botany) The fruit of the marmeladeira and the name of several other plants.^[3][19]

Word family

• marmeladeira

Related words

• marmelo
• marmeleiro
• Latin melimēlum
• Spanish mermelada
• French marmelade

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b 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. marmelada
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. marmelada
4. ^ a b c Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. marmelo
5. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. marmelada
6. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. marmelo
7. ^ a b c Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. marmelade
8. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. marmelada
9. ^ 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. marmelada
10. ^ Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 271
11. ^ 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, 150
12. ^ a b c d e Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. marmelada
13. ^ Schlee, Aldyr Garcia (2019), Dicionário da Cultura Pampeana Sul-Rio-Grandense, 2 vols., Pelotas: Fructos do Paiz, p. s.v. marmelada
14. ^ a b c Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 5971
15. ^ Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. marmelada
16. ^ a b Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli, p. s.v. marmellata
17. ^ Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. mermelada
18. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com, p. s.v. marmalade
19. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. marmelada
20. ^ 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. marmelada