martelo

Forms

martelo m (plural martelos)^[1] Until the spelling reforms of the 20th century the word was often written martello, as in Bluteau, Feijó and Vieira.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin martellus (“hammer”), written Old Galician-Portuguese martelo in the oldest texts.^[5][6][1][7] Houaiss and Cunha take the Late Latin word for a variant of martulus, itself an alteration of marculus (“small hammer”), the diminutive of marcus (“hammer”).^[5][6] Corominas notes that classical Latin had both of these forms (the second in Pliny), and that the diminutive in -ellus is recorded in Isidore of Seville and in glosses.^[8] Wiktionary instead treats the simple noun as a late back-formation from the diminutive, and also mentions an explanation from malleus (“hammer”).^[1] The origin of the diminutive is disputed: Wiktionary sets out several reconstructions from the root Proto-Indo-European *melh₂- (“to grind”).^[1] Vieira in 1871 derived the word from French martel.^[4]

The same Late Latin word is Galician martelo, Spanish martillo, Catalan martell, French marteau and Italian martello.^[1][9][10] The classical diminutive itself survives in Spanish macho (“sledgehammer”).^[11][12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CTA's earliest record is in the Trasladação de S. Nicolau, in a witness of the 14th century;^[13][5][6] Houaiss and Cunha also date the word to that century.^[13][5][6] The sense is the smith's and carpenter's tool.^[5]

Semantic evolution

Bluteau (1712–1728) describes the many kinds of hammer used by different trades and their names, among them the camartelo of the masons.^[2] Things that strike like a hammer took the name: the piece that strikes the hours in a clock, the hammers of a piano, the gavel of judges and auctioneers, the small bone of the middle ear and the weight thrown in athletics.^[5][14][7] Figuratively a martelo is someone who fights an evil (martelo das heresias) and, at the other extreme, a tiresome person.^[5][6]

Brazil added a small thick-bottomed glass for spirits, and the measure it holds.^[14][15][16] In north-eastern Brazil martelo is a verse form of the cantadores, which Nascentes links with the name of Pedro Jaques Martelli, a professor at Bologna.^[6][17][18] The word passed into Ambonese Malay as martelu and into the Língua Geral of Amazonia as martera.^[1]

Timeline

• 14th century – martelo in the Trasladação de S. Nicolau.^[13][5]
• 15th century – the spelling martellos.^[5]
• 1513 – martello in the Livro dos Mártires.^[19]
• 1697 – Pereira's Thesouro renders Martelo by Latin malleus and marculus.^[20]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau lists the hammers of the different trades.^[2]
• 1813 – first records of martelada and martelete.^[6]
• 1871 – Vieira derives martello from French.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A hammer: a tool with a heavy head, usually of iron, fixed to a handle, for driving nails, beating or breaking.^[5][14][1]
2. A small wooden hammer used by judges and auctioneers, a gavel.^[5][14][7]
3. The part of a clock that strikes the hours; each of the felt-covered hammers that strike the strings of a piano.^[5][7][21]
4. A key for tuning pianos.^[7][21]
5. (anatomy) The malleus, one of the small bones of the middle ear.^[14][15][1]
6. (athletics) The hammer, a metal ball on a steel wire thrown for distance.^[14][21][1]
7. (figurative) Someone who persecutes or tries to wipe out an evil.^[5][14]
8. (figurative) A tiresome, importunate person.^[5][7][21]
9. (Brazil) A small thick glass for spirits, or the measure of drink it holds.^[14][15][16]
10. (north-eastern Brazil) A verse form of ten-syllable lines sung in the cantadores' contests.^[6][18]
11. (zoology) The hammerhead shark, short for peixe-martelo; in Pernambuco, the aquatic larva of a mosquito.^[17][15][22]

Word family

• martelada
• martelar
• martelete
• camartelo

Related words

• Latin marculus
• Galician martelo
• Spanish martillo

Usage notes

A martelo means “by force, against the grain”, and vinho a martelo is adulterated or poor wine.^[21][23]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m 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. martello
3. ^ Feijó, João de Morais Madureira (1734), Orthographia, ou Arte de escrever, e pronunciar com acerto a lingua portugueza, Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. martello
4. ^ a b c 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, 154
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. martelo
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. martelo
7. ^ a b c d e f 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. martelo
8. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 865
9. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 319
10. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. martellus
11. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5347
12. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. marculus
13. ^ a b c Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. martelo
14. ^ a b c d e f g h Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. martelo
15. ^ a b c d 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. martelo
16. ^ a b Schlee, Aldyr Garcia (2019), Dicionário da Cultura Pampeana Sul-Rio-Grandense, 2 vols., Pelotas: Fructos do Paiz, p. s.v. martelo
17. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. martelo
18. ^ 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. martelo
19. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. martello
20. ^ 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. martelo
21. ^ a b c d e Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. martelo
22. ^ Navarro, Fred (2004), Dicionário do Nordeste, São Paulo: Estação Liberdade, p. s.v. martelo
23. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 5983