mosteiro

Forms

mosteiro m (plural mosteiros)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote moesteiro, mõesteiro, monesteyro and mosteiro;^[2][3] Houaiss adds monesteiro (1340), moysteyro (14th century) and mojsteiro (15th century).^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *monistērium, a popular form of Late Latin monastērium (“monastery”), written Old Galician-Portuguese moesteiro in the oldest texts, also with a nasal tilde.^[2][3][4][1] The Latin word is from Ancient Greek μοναστήριον (monastḗrion, “hermit's dwelling, monastery”), from μόνος (mónos, “alone”).^[2][1]

Leite de Vasconcelos, quoted by Nascentes, explains the popular Latin form by analogy with baptistērium and traces the series from the nasal form through moosteiro to the modern word.^[5] Carolina Michaëlis de Vasconcelos likewise derives the form without the tilde from the nasal one.^[6]

The same Latin word is Galician mosteiro, French moutier, Catalan monestir and Italian monastero, and it was borrowed into Germanic as munistri and minster.^[7][1] Spanish monasterio is a learned word.^[8] Portuguese has the learned doublet monastério.^[2][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss's earliest form is moesteiro in 1270, and he dates the word to 1273.^[2] The Cantigas de Santa Maria speak of un mõesteir' antigo, and Airas Nunez of searching nos moesteiros dos frades regrados “in the monasteries of the friars under rule”.^[6]

Semantic evolution

Viterbo noticed the great number of mosteiros in the oldest documents and explained it from an older sense: following Cassian, the cell of a single monk was a monasterium, and a hut of branches could be one.^[9] He records the word also for cathedrals and for the mother churches of parishes served by a body of clergy, and Houaiss lists among its old senses the cell of a religious, the cathedral and a small chapel or vault where the dead were buried.^[9][2] Morais (1813) adds the mosteiro de herdeiros, a church beside which a family lived bound to give alms and lodging to friars, priests and pilgrims, passed down to its heirs.^[10]

Since the dictionaries of the 16th century the word has meant a house of monks or nuns, a convent.^[11][12][2]

Timeline

• 1270 – first record, as moesteiro.^[2]
• 1273 – Houaiss's date for the word.^[2]
• 13th century – mõesteiro in the Cantigas de Santa Maria;^[6][3] Cunha dates mosteiro, moesteiro and monesteyro to this century.^[6][3]
• 1340 – the form monesteiro.^[2]
• 1390 – a charter of Noia names the abbot do moesteiro de Sam Justo.^[6]
• c. 1438 – the Vida de Santa Eufrosina uses mosteiro.^[13]
• 1569 – Cardoso glosses it with Latin caenobium.^[11]
• 1798 – Viterbo's Elucidário discusses the old senses of the word.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. A monastery, a house where monks (monges) or nuns live in community; a convento.^{[2][14][15][1]}
2. The community of monks or nuns who live in a monastery.^[15][16]
3. (obsolete) The cell of a single religious.^[2][15]
4. (obsolete) A cathedral.^[2][9]
5. (obsolete) A small chapel or vault where the dead were buried.^[2][10]

Related words

• monastério
• monge
• Latin monasterium
• Galician mosteiro

Usage notes

Silva Bastos records língua mosteira as the name of an old Portuguese creole of Diu.^[17]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. mosteiro
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. mosteiro
4. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. mosteiro
5. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 344
6. ^ a b c d e 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. moesteiro
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5656
8. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. monasterium
9. ^ a b c d Viterbo, Joaquim de Santa Rosa de (1798–1799), Elucidario das palavras, termos e frases que em Portugal antiguamente se usárão, 2 vols., Lisboa: Simão Thaddeo Ferreira, p. 2, 163
10. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 322
11. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. mosteiro
12. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. mosteiro
13. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. mosteiro
14. ^ Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. mosteiro
15. ^ 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. mosteiro
16. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. mosteiro
17. ^ Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. mosteiro