mealha

Forms

mealha f (plural mealhas)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote mealha and mealla.^[2][3] Houaiss also records meiálha in 1577.^[2] Morais (1789) held meialha to be the better spelling, and Vieira preferred meyalha.^[4][5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *medalia, written Old Galician-Portuguese mealla in the oldest texts.^[2][6][1] Houaiss, following Cunha and Nascentes, derives it from mediālia, the neuter plural of mediālis (“middle”), used of a copper coin worth half a denarius.^[2][7] Machado considers the etymon probable.^[2] The first /j/ was lost by dissimilation, and the form *medalia is attested in a ninth-century gloss with the sense “half a denarius”.^[1][8] The adjective is formed on Latin medius (“middle”) with the suffix -ālis.^[1]

The same Late Latin word is Spanish meaja, Catalan malla, Old Occitan mealha and French maille “small copper coin”.^[8] Corominas calls it a word common to all the western Romance languages, of uncertain origin, and thinks the source *medalia probable.^[9] Italian medaglia, which passed into Portuguese as medalha, is the same word.^[8][1] An older proposal, *metallea, was rejected by Meyer-Lübke.^[8][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss's first date is 1009, after Machado, for the plural mealias; documents of the 13th century in Latin also name the coin, such as one of 1228 that has de pelle cabruna una mealla “for a goatskin, one mealha”.^[2][3] The first Portuguese form Houaiss dates is mealha in 1269.^[2] In the Cantigas de Santa Maria a poor woman has only sa mealla to offer, and a cantiga d'escarnho of Airas Nunez says a bad bishop non val ũa mealha “isn't worth a mealha”.^[3][11]

Semantic evolution

Viterbo explains that the mealha was not struck as a coin of its own but was half a dinheiro cut with a knife or shears, and that it was abolished under King Manuel I.^[12] Bluteau gives the same account from the chronicle of King Fernando.^[13] Morais (1813) quotes a statement that a real was worth twelve mealhas.^[14] Since the coin was the smallest of all, the word came to mean any tiny quantity, a crumb or trifle, a sense the dictionaries give as figurative.^[2][15][16]

In the Algarve the word names an iron plate in the windmill, and in Trás-os-Montes a river stone on which the axle of the water mill turns, a sense the REW explains from “middle”.^[2][17][8]

Timeline

• 1009 – the plural mealias, Houaiss's first date after Machado.^[2]
• 1228 – una mealla in a 13th-century Galician document.^[3]
• 1269 – first dated mealha in Houaiss.^[2]
• 13th century – meallas in Houaiss's historical forms; the Cantigas de Santa Maria use mealla.^[2][3]
• 1390–1437 – the Horto do Esposo has the word.^[18]
• 1577 – the spelling meiálha.^[2]
• 1789 – Morais defines it as an old coin of little value.^[4]
• 1798–1799 – Viterbo explains the cut half-dinheiro.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. (numismatics, historical) A copper coin worth half a dinheiro or half a ceitil, the smallest coin under the first kings of Portugal.^{[2][16][15][1]}
2. (figurative) A tiny quantity of anything; a crumb, a trifle (migalha).^{[2][16][15][1]}
3. (Algarve) An iron plate placed in the shaft socket of a windmill.^[2]

Word family

• mealheiro

Related words

• medalha
• meio
• Latin medius
• Spanish meaja

Usage notes

The coin survives in negative phrases of the type não valer uma mealha “not to be worth a farthing”, already in the medieval cantigas.^[11]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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 Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. mealha
3. ^ a b c d e 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. mealla
4. ^ a b 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, 66
5. ^ 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, 173
6. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. mealha
7. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. mealha
8. ^ a b c d e Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5451
9. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. meaja
10. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. s.v. mealha
11. ^ 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. mealha
12. ^ a b Viterbo, Joaquim de Santa Rosa de (1798–1799), Elucidario das palavras, termos e frases que em Portugal antiguamente se usárão, 2 vols., Lisboa: Simão Thaddeo Ferreira, p. 2, 125
13. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro)
14. ^ Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 279
15. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. mealha
16. ^ a b c 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. mealha
17. ^ Instituto da Lingua Galega, Tesouro do léxico patrimonial galego e portugués (TLPGP), Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, https://ilg.usc.gal/tesouro, p. s.v. mealha
18. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. mealha