mestiço

Forms

mestiço (feminine mestiça, masculine plural mestiços, feminine plural mestiças)^[1] Houaiss records the spelling mistiças in 1554–1583.^[2] Feijó (1734) and Morais (1789) preferred mistiço, as nearer to misto “mixed”.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin mixticius (“born of mixed race”), from mixtus (“mixed”), the past participle of misceō (“to mix”).^[2][5][6][1] Wiktionary analyses the Late Latin word as the participle with the suffix -īcius, and notes that it is found in Jerome and Isidore.^[1]

The same Latin word is Spanish mestizo, French métis, Catalan mestís and Occitan mestís.^[1][7][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss and Cunha date the word to the 14th century, for a person born of parents of different races.^[2][5] Cardoso (1569) renders it by Latin ibrida, and Barbosa (1611) by hybris and hybrida.^[9][10]

Semantic evolution

Morais (1789) gives two senses: the offspring of animals of different species, and the child of a European and an Indian woman or of a white man and a mulatto woman.^[4] Caldas Aulete extends it to crossbred plants and, in the Alentejo, to a cheese of mixed goat's and sheep's milk; in Brazil it also names a catfish.^[11][2]

The Dictionnaire historique takes the French forms metice and mestice of the 17th and 18th centuries from Portuguese mestiço or Spanish mestizo; they explain the final /s/ still heard in French métis.^[8] Dutch borrowed the word as mesties.^[1]

Timeline

• 14th century – first records.^[2][5]
• 1554–1583 – the spelling mistiças.^[2]
• 1569 – Cardoso renders Mestiço by Latin ibrida.^[9]
• 1620 – mastiços in a private letter.^[12]
• 1734 – Feijó prefers the spelling mistiço.^[3]
• 1789 – Morais defines both the human and the animal sense.^[4]
• 1899 – first records of mestiçagem and mestiçamento.^[5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Born of parents of different races or ethnic groups; mixed-race.^[2][6][13]
2. Of an animal or plant: crossbred, from different breeds, species or varieties.^[2][13][11]
3. (Alentejo) Of cheese: made from both goat's and sheep's milk.^[11]

Noun

1. A person of mixed descent.^[2][6][13]
2. A crossbred animal.^[6]
3. (Brazil) A large Amazonian catfish, Platynematichthys notatus.^[2][14]
4. (botany) A cultivated variety of soft wheat (trigo).^[13]

Word family

• mestiçagem
• mestiçamento

Related words

• misto
• Latin mixtus
• Spanish mestizo

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. mestiço
3. ^ 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. mestiço
4. ^ a b c 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, 78
5. ^ a b c d Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. mestiço
6. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. mestiço
7. ^ 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. mestizo
8. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. métis
9. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. mestiço
10. ^ Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. mestiço
11. ^ a b c 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. mestiço
12. ^ 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. mestiço
13. ^ a b c d 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. mestiço
14. ^ 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. mestiço