mesa

Forms

mesa f (plural mesas)^[1] Houaiss records messa in 1395 and the Latinising mensa in 1716.^[2] The spelling meza was common in the 18th century: Bluteau (1712–1728) heads the word mesa, ou meza.^[3][1] In 1734 Feijó, deriving the word from Latin mensa, warned that pronouncing it menza was wrong.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin mēnsa (“table”), already mēsa in spoken Latin, and written Old Galician-Portuguese mesa in the oldest texts.^[2][5][1][6]

The same Latin word is Galician mesa, Spanish mesa, Catalan mesa and Romanian masă.^[7][1] Wiktionary adds Italian mensa, and in French the Latin word survives as the carpentry term French moise, a pair of timbers bolted together.^[8][1] Wiktionary notes that the Persian word میز (mêz, “table”) is not related, although the two are sometimes confused because both were borrowed into languages of southern Asia.^[1]

The Latin noun is probably the feminine of mēnsus (“measured”), the past participle of mētior (“to measure”).^[9][1] De Vaan adds that if Umbrian mefa, a sacrificial object, perhaps a cake, is the same word, the meaning moved from the offering to the table on which offerings were laid.^[9][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The word is recorded from the 13th century;^[2][5][11] Machado has it as a place name in a Latin text of 1141.^[2][5][11] The Cantigas de Santa Maria tell of a man who was eating e poi-ll' alçaron a mesa “and then they cleared the table for him”, and of one who lles parava mesa en branca toalla “laid a table for them on a white cloth”.^[11] In a satirical cantiga Alfonso X writes that someone ben pôs al Rei a mesa “set the table well for the King”, ironically, “did him a fine service”.^[11]

Semantic evolution

From the piece of furniture the word passed to what is served on it, to a household's board and fare, and to the people seated at it.^[2][12] Houaiss dates the sense “food and drink served” to the 15th century, and the phrase dar mesa “to give someone their meals” is already in the cantigas.^[2][11] Morais (1813) records pôr a mesa “to lay the table”, Barros and Couto's os Capitães davão mesa aos soldados, the mesa do carro (the bed of a cart), and the figurative sense “the board of a brotherhood or other body”.^[13] From this last came the mesa that presides over an assembly or an election.^[2][14]

Modern technical senses include the flat-topped hill of geology, the bed of a billiard table and the mixing desk of a studio.^[2][14]

The word was widely borrowed: it is meja in Malay and Indonesian, mesa in Papiamentu and Kituba, mésá in Lingala, mmeeza in Luganda and meza in Nheengatu, and it was also borrowed into Tamil, Malayalam and Sinhalese.^[1]

Timeline

• 1141 – a place name in a Latin text, cited by Machado.^[11]
• 13th century – mesa in the Cantigas de Santa Maria and the satirical cantigas.^[11][5][2]
• 1395 – the spelling messa.^[2]
• 1416 – mesa in the Vida de Santo Aleixo.^[15]
• 15th century – first record of the sense “food served at table”.^[2]
• 1611 – Barbosa lists pôr a mesa and tables of one, two and three legs.^[16]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau heads the word mesa, ou meza.^[3]
• 1716 – the Latinising spelling mensa.^[2]
• 1734 – Feijó rejects the pronunciation menza.^[4]
• 1813 – Morais records the sense “board of a brotherhood”.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. A table, a piece of furniture with a flat top on one or more legs, used for meals, work, games and so on: Deixou as chaves em cima da mesa.^[2][17][1]
2. What is set out on the table for a meal: pôr a mesa, tirar a mesa.^[2][18]
3. food, fare, one's daily board: gostar de boa mesa.^[2][14][1]
4. The people sitting together at a table.^[2][14]
5. The board or presiding committee of an assembly, association or polling station.^[2][14][1]
6. In certain card games, the stake or pool on the table.^[14][18]
7. (geology) A mesa, a flat-topped elevation bounded by steep slopes.^[14][19][1]
8. The bed of a cart on which the load is placed.^[2][18]

Word family

• mesinha
• mesário
• mesão
• amesendar

Related words

• meseta
• Latin mēnsa
• Galician mesa

Usage notes

Common phrases include pôr a mesa “to lay the table”, mesa redonda “round table, panel discussion” and mesa de cabeceira “bedside table”.^[1]

Houaiss also lists two minor words spelled mesa: a botanical name for the plants of the genus Maesa (pronounced with /ê/), from the scientific Latin name of 1775, and an adjective and noun mesa with /é/, “of the Mesae”, a people of the mouth of the Indus, from Latin Mesae.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p 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. mesa
3. ^ 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. mesa
4. ^ a b 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. mesa
5. ^ a b c d Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. mesa
6. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. mesa
7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. mensa
8. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. moise
9. ^ 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, p. s.v. mēnsa
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. mensa
11. ^ a b c d e f g 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. mesa
12. ^ 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. mesa
13. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 293
14. ^ a b c d e f g Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. mesa
15. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. mesa
16. ^ Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. mesa
17. ^ 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. mesa
18. ^ a b c Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. mesa
19. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 6106