menor

Forms

menor m or f (plural menores)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote meor, plural meores;^[2][3] menor appears in the 15th century beside meor and meior.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin minor (“smaller, lesser”), written Old Galician-Portuguese meor in the oldest texts.^[2][3][4][1] Nascentes considers the modern form a learned remaking on the Latin word, since the old language had meor.^[5] The Latin adjective served as the comparative of parvus (“small”).^[2]

The same Latin word is Galician menor, Spanish menor, Catalan menor, Italian minore and French moindre.^[6][1] French also borrowed mineur from Latin in the 14th century.^[7]

The Latin adjective goes back to Proto-Italic *minōs (“less”).^[8][1] Wiktionary takes it to Proto-Indo-European *mey- (“small, little”), and de Vaan compares Ancient Greek μείων (meíōn, “smaller”).^[1][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss's first record is the plural meores in 1273.^[2] The Crónica Troiana addresses os mayores et os meores “the great and the small”, the people of higher and lower rank, and the Crónica Geral calls a younger brother o yrmão meor.^[9][3]

Semantic evolution

From the start the adjective covered size, rank and age.^[9][3] Cardoso (1569) glosses it with Latin minor natu “younger”.^[10] Galician notarial books already speak of heirs who die menores de hedade “under age”.^[9]

Vieira (1871) defines it as the comparative of pequeno.^[11] The modern dictionaries add the musical senses (minor interval, minor key), the minor orders of the Church, and trajes menores “underclothes”.^[2][12][13] As a noun it means a person under age.^[2][14]

Timeline

• 1273 – the plural meores.^[2]
• 15th century – menor beside meor and meior.^[2]
• 1446 – O quicunque vult per linguajem (witness of 1431–1446).^[15]
• 1561 – first in the private letters of Post Scriptum.^[16]
• 1569 – Cardoso glosses it minor natu “younger”.^[10]
• 1871 – Vieira calls it the comparative of pequeno.^[11]

Meanings

Adjective

1. smaller, lesser: the comparative of pequeno.^[2][17][1]
2. (with the definite article) The smallest, the least: não tenho a menor ideia.^[2][1]
3. Lower in rank; subordinate.^[2][12]
4. Of secondary importance; minor, slight.^[2][17][1]
5. Younger: o irmão menor.^[2]
6. (law) Under age: not yet legally of age.^[2][17][1]
7. (music) Of an interval, a semitone smaller than the major one; of a scale or key, with a minor third and sixth.^[2]
8. (of clothing) Worn under other clothes: trajes menores.^[2][13]

Noun

1. A minor: a person under the legal age.^[2][1][14]

Word family

• menoridade

Related words

• menos
• minoria
• mínimo

Usage notes

Aurélio notes that mais pequeno is also perfectly correct and very common as the comparative of pequeno.^[17] In Rio Grande do Sul a minor is also called de menor.^[18] Houaiss also has a masculine noun menor in algebra, short for determinante menor, the minor of a determinant.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n 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 r s Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. menor
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. meor
4. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. menor
5. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 326
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5592
7. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. mineur
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
9. ^ a b c 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. menor
10. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. menor
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, 200
12. ^ a b 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. menor
13. ^ a b Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 6085
14. ^ a b 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. menor
15. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. menor
16. ^ 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. menor
17. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. menor
18. ^ Schlee, Aldyr Garcia (2019), Dicionário da Cultura Pampeana Sul-Rio-Grandense, 2 vols., Pelotas: Fructos do Paiz, p. s.v. menor