milho

Forms

milho m (plural milhos)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote milho and millo;^[2][3] Houaiss also records minlho and mylho in 1365 and mjlho in the 15th century.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin milium (“millet”), written Old Galician-Portuguese milho and Old Galician-Portuguese millo in the oldest texts.^[2][3][1] The Portuguese, Spanish and Catalan forms point to Vulgar Latin *mīlium with long /iː/ in place of the classical short vowel; the REW and Houaiss explain it by the influence of mīlle (“thousand”), for the great number of grains in an ear.^[3][4][5][2] Nascentes instead has the short /i/ kept as /i/ by metaphony, after Nunes.^[6]

The same Latin word is Galician millo, Spanish mijo, Catalan mill, French mil, Italian miglio and Romanian mei.^[5][1] The Spanish word is recorded from 1219.^[7]

The Latin noun is traced to Proto-Italic *meljom and to Proto-Indo-European *melh₂- (“to grind”), and compared with Ancient Greek μελίνη (melínē, “millet”) and Lithuanian málnos, a kind of millet.^[1][8] De Vaan holds that the Latin, Greek and Lithuanian nouns could each be derived separately of the root “to grind”.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Latin charters of 965 and 976 already list grain inter milio et centenum “between millet and rye”.^[4] Houaiss's first vernacular record is of 1255.^[2] In the Cantigas de Santa Maria a man watches seu millo debullar, his millet being threshed, and another cantiga speaks of milho pera borõa, millet for bread.^[4][9] In all these the word means millet.^[4][9]

Semantic evolution

After the discovery of America the name of millet was given to maize, which Houaiss, after Machado and Leite de Vasconcelos, says was brought to Europe by the Spaniards, spread by the Portuguese and introduced into Portugal in the first quarter of the 16th century.^[2][10] The REW notes that the descendants of the Latin word name maize in many regions.^[5] Morais (1789) still lists several kinds under the word: painço, miúdo, grande ou maiz and zaburro.^[11] Today milho alone means maize, and millet is milho-miúdo or milheto.^[2][12][1]

Popular speech uses it for money, a sense Silva Bastos already gives in 1912.^[13][14][15] Through Afrikaans mielie the word reached South African English as mealie;^[1] Manado Malay has milu.^[1]

Timeline

• 965 – inter milio et centenum in a Latin charter.^[4]
• 1255 – first vernacular record.^[2]
• 13th century – millo in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[4][2]
• 1343 – millo in the notarial book of Noia.^[4]
• 1365 – the spellings minlho and mylho.^[2]
• 15th century – first record of milharada.^[3]
• 16th century, first quarter – maize reaches Portugal, according to Houaiss.^[2]
• 16th century – first record of milharal.^[3]
• 1569 – Cardoso: Milho. milium.^[16]
• 1789 – Morais lists milho grande ou maiz among the kinds of milho.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. maize, corn: the tall grass Zea mays, native to the Americas and grown for its grain.^[2][12][1]
2. An ear of maize, a corncob.^[2][1]
3. The grain of maize; a single kernel.^[2][12][1]
4. (informal) Money.^[2][14][15]
5. (in the plural, Trás-os-Montes, cooking) A dish of coarsely ground maize cooked with bacon or sausage and vegetables.^[17]

Adjective

1. Made of maize, of straw or flour: farinha milha.^[12][14]

Word family

• milharal
• milharada
• milheiral
• milhal
• milheira
• milhã

Related words

• milheto
• miliar
• Latin milium
• Galician millo
• Spanish mijo

Usage notes

In Brazil catar milho “to pick maize” means jokingly to type slowly, hunting for each key.^[2][14]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m 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 Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. milho
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. milho
4. ^ 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. millo
5. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5572
6. ^ 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
7. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. mijo
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, p. s.v. milium
9. ^ a b 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. milho
10. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. milho
11. ^ 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, 82
12. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. milho
13. ^ Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. milho
14. ^ a b c d 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. milho
15. ^ 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. milho
16. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. milho
17. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 6177