mezinha

Forms

mezinha f (plural mezinhas)^[1] The medieval forms are meezya and meezynna (13th century), meenzinha and mezinhas (14th), méézinha and meixinhas (15th).^[2][3] Wiktionary lists the variants meizinha, melzina and menzinha.^[1] In Portugal the first vowel is open, /mɛ/, and the dictionaries warn against confusion with mesinha, the diminutive of mesa.^[4][1][5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin medicīna (“the art of healing; remedy”), by the popular route, written Old Galician-Portuguese meezinha in the oldest texts.^[2][3][1] The learned medicina is its doublet.^[2][1] Nascentes lists the sound changes: the intervocalic /d/ was lost, the short first /i/ became /e/, the two /e/ merged, the /k/ became /z/ and the /n/ was palatalised to ⟨nh⟩.^[6] The same Latin word is Galician menciña, Spanish melecina, Catalan metzina and Old Occitan metzina.^[1][7]

The Latin noun is the feminine of medicīnus (“medical”) used as a noun, from medicus (“doctor”).^[1][8] Cunha notes that Old Portuguese, until about the middle of the 16th century, used físico and física far more often than médico and the learned word for medicine.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss and Cunha date the word to the 13th century, in the spellings meezya and meezynna.^[2][3] A cantiga d'escarnho of Alfonso X uses meezinha for a means of cure: the poet will flee the poison and the scorpion, since he knows no other remedy.^[9] In the 15th century the Leal Conselheiro of King Duarte speaks of a meezinha mui proveitosa “a very useful remedy”.^[6]

Semantic evolution

Cardoso (1569) glosses the word with Latin medicamentum and Barbosa (1611) with medicina.^[10][11] Morais (1813) defines it as a household remedy and adds that it was usually said of an enema; he also quotes a figurative “remedy for any ill”.^[12] Vieira and the old Caldas Aulete give the enema first, then any remedy and the home remedy, and the modern dictionaries keep these senses, the enema now marked informal.^{[13][5][14][4]} It passed into the Macanese creole as mizinha.^[1]

Timeline

• 13th century – the forms meezya and meezynna;^[2][3][9] meezinha in a cantiga of Alfonso X.^[2][3][9]
• 14th century – the forms meenzinha and mezinhas.^[2]
• 15th century – méézinha and meixinhas.^[2]
• 1513 – the Livro dos Mártires has mezinha.^[15]
• 1544 – a private letter has mezinhas.^[16]
• 1569 – Cardoso glosses it with Latin medicamentum.^[10]
• 1813 – Morais: household remedy, usually an enema.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. A medicinal liquid given as an enema; the enema itself.^[2][14][17]
2. (informal) Any medicine or remedy.^[2][18]
3. (informal) A home remedy, often made of herbs.^{[2][14][17][1]}

Word family

• mezinhar
• mezinhice

Related words

• medicina
• Latin medicīna
• Galician menciña
• Spanish melecina

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. mezinha
3. ^ a b c d e f Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. mezinha
4. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. mezinha
5. ^ 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. mezinha
6. ^ a b 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. mezinha
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5458
8. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
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. meezinha
10. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. mezinha
11. ^ Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. mezinha
12. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 298
13. ^ 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, 231
14. ^ 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. mezinha
15. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. mezinha
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. mezinha
17. ^ a b Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. mezinha
18. ^ 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. mezinha