milagre

Forms

milagre m (plural milagres)^[1] The oldest form is miragre (13th century, also myragre); milagre appears in the 14th century beside melagre, millagre and mjlagre, and Houaiss records milagros in the 15th.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin mīrāculum (“a marvel, a wonder”), written Old Galician-Portuguese miragre in the oldest texts.^[2][3][1] Wiktionary calls it a semi-learned word.^[1] The Latin noun is formed from mīror (“to wonder at”) with the suffix -culum.^[4][3]

Nascentes explains the form by the voicing of /k/, the loss of the unstressed ⟨u⟩ and an exchange of ⟨r⟩ and ⟨l⟩ (*miraglo > milagro), with a later change of the final vowel.^[5] He reports that Cortesão preferred a form miragro whose first ⟨r⟩ was dissimilated.^[5][6] The glossary of the Crónica Geral suggests that the word may have come through France.^[7]

The same Latin word is Galician milagre, Spanish milagro (earlier Old Spanish miraglo), Catalan miracle, French miracle and Italian miracolo; in Catalan it also gave mirall (“mirror”).^[8][9][10] Portuguese later borrowed it again as miráculo.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The prologue of the Cantigas de Santa Maria says that the king made songs and tunes dos miragres seus “of her miracles”, and the fifth cantiga tells un mui gran miragre “a very great miracle”.^[7] Pero da Ponte uses the word mockingly in a cantiga d'escarnho: nunca eu tan gran miragre vi “I never saw so great a miracle”.^[7][11]

Semantic evolution

In the Miragres de Santiago the word is still miragre, while a chronicle of 1344 already writes muitos milagres.^[7] Morais in 1789 defines it as an effect beyond the powers of nature that only God, or one to whom he grants the power, can work, and records the looser sense of any marvellous work, as of a doctor who “works miracles”.^[12] Aulete's original dictionary quotes Camões's line on the Colossus of Rhodes, que um dos sete milagres foi do mundo “which was one of the seven wonders of the world”.^[13] Houaiss adds the medieval miracle play and, in Brazil, the ex-voto of wax or wood or the painted picture offered to a saint for a granted prayer.^[2] Porto Editora records the wax figure in Portugal too.^[2][14]

Timeline

• 13th century – miragre in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[2][3][7]
• 1344 – milagres in a chronicle.^[7]
• 14th century – the form milagre.^[2][3]
• 1491 – first record in the CTA corpus, in the Vida de Santo Elói.^[15]
• 1569 – Cardoso glosses Milagre with Latin miraculum.^[16]
• 1789 – Morais defines the religious and the figurative sense.^[12]
• 1871 – Vieira derives it from Latin miraculum and mirari.^[17]

Meanings

Noun

1. A miracle: an event that the laws of nature cannot explain, attributed to God or a saint.^[2][1][18]
2. A marvel, a wonder: aquela ponte é um milagre de engenharia.^[2][19]
3. A surprising or lucky outcome against the odds: Foi um milagre ninguém se ferir.^[2][1]
4. (theatre history) A miracle play, an edifying medieval drama on the life of a saint.^[2]
5. (religion) A sign of divine participation in human life.^[2]
6. (Brazil) An ex-voto: a wax or wooden figure, often of a part of the body, or a picture with a caption, offered to a saint for a granted prayer.^[2][14]

Word family

• milagreiro
• milagroso

Related words

• mirar
• miráculo
• admirar
• Latin mīrāculum
• Galician milagre
• Spanish milagro

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 Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. milagre
3. ^ a b c d e Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. mirar
4. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. mīrāculum
5. ^ 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. 333
6. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. milagre
7. ^ a b c d e f 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. miragre
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. miraculum
9. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. miraculum
10. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. milagro
11. ^ Universo Cantigas: Glosario da poesía medieval profana galego-portuguesa, A Coruña: Instituto da Lingua e Literatura (ILLA), Universidade da Coruña, https://www.universocantigas.gal, p. s.v. miragre
12. ^ 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, 81
13. ^ 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. milagre
14. ^ a b Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 6171
15. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. milagre
16. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. milagre
17. ^ 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, 237
18. ^ 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. milagre
19. ^ Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. milagre