mundo

Forms

mundo m (plural mundos)^[1] Houaiss records the 14th-century spelling mudo, and Wiktionary the old mũdo.^[2][1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin mundus (“world”), written Old Galician-Portuguese mundo in the oldest texts.^[2][3][4][1] Corominas notes that the Portuguese and Spanish word is semi-learned: a popular Old Spanish mondo must be restored once in early verse for the rhyme, but the form with /u/, spread by the language of sermons, prevailed in both languages.^[5] Nascentes also thought it a learned word of Church origin.^[6]

The same Latin word is Galician mundo, Spanish mundo, Catalan món, Occitan mond, Italian mondo and Sardinian mundu.^[7][1] French monde is a learned form that replaced the popular Old French mont.^[8]

In Latin the noun meant “heavens, sky; world, earth”; de Vaan suggests that its use was influenced by Ancient Greek κόσμος (kósmos, “order; ornament”), and Wiktionary and the DLE treat the sense “world” as modelled on the Greek word.^[9][1][10] Its further origin is unknown: a link with an Etruscan word cannot be established while that word's meaning is unknown.^[9] Bluteau (1712–1728) explained the name from the Latin adjective for “clean”, as the Greeks called the world “ornament”, because it is God's clean and perfect work.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The cantigas of the 13th century use the word for the earth as opposed to heaven: the Cancioneiro da Ajuda has partir-se d'aqueste mundo “to leave this world”, and the Cantigas de Santa Maria speak of the sea that surrounds the world (o mar que cerca o mund'arredor) and of someone who left the delight of the other world for the earthly one.^[12] The Crónica Troiana praises a horse as one of the best in the world (dos boos que ẽno mundo auya).^[12]

Semantic evolution

Bluteau (1712–1728) defines mundo as the whole universe, heaven and earth with all their creatures.^[11] Morais (1813) adds the inhabited globe, people in general, laymen as distinct from those dedicated to God, and o mundo que corre, the ways and vices of worldly people.^[13] Modern dictionaries add a social class or milieu, a field of activity, and, in Brazil, “a great quantity”.^[2][14] The phrases primeiro mundo and terceiro mundo translate terms coined in the 1950s by the French demographer Alfred Sauvy.^[2] Corominas rejects the idea that todo o mundo “everybody” is a Gallicism: the phrase is medieval and classical in Spanish.^[5]

The word passed into Kabuverdianu mundu, Papiamentu mundu and Tetum mundu.^[1]

Timeline

• 13th century – first records, in the cantigas.^[2][3][12]
• 14th century – the spelling mudo.^[2]
• c. 1430 – the Horto do Esposo (copied 1391–1450) uses mundo.^[15]
• 1504 – mũdo in a private letter.^[16]
• 1569 – Cardoso's dictionary renders mundo by Latin mundus and orbis terrarum.^[17]
• 1611 – Barbosa lists Cousa do mundo “worldly thing”.^[18]
• 1813 – Morais records the senses “mankind” and “laymen”.^[13]
• 1950s – primeiro mundo and terceiro mundo, after Sauvy's French terms.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The universe: all the heavenly bodies, the firmament.^[2][14][1]
2. The planet Earth; any other heavenly body like it.^[2][14]
3. Everything on Earth; mankind, people in general: Ela quer conhecer o mundo.^[2][14]
4. Each of the hemispheres or great divisions of the Earth, as o Novo Mundo, o Velho Mundo.^[2][19]
5. A social class or circle; society, worldly life as opposed to religious life.^[2][13]
6. A sphere or field of activity: o mundo do futebol.^[2][20]
7. (figurative) Something very large or complex.^[2]
8. (Brazil, figurative) A great quantity: um mundo de papéis.^[2]
9. (philosophy) The coherent whole of all that exists; cosmos.^[2]

Adjective

1. (rare) clean, pure.^[2][14]

Word family

• mundão
• mundinho

Related words

• mundano
• mundaréu
• mundial
• imundo
• Latin mundus
• Galician mundo

Usage notes

Aurélio treats the rare adjective mundo “clean, pure” as a separate word, from the Latin adjective mundus “clean, elegant”;^[14][2] Houaiss gives it as a sense of the noun's entry.^[14][2] Todo o mundo (in Brazil also todo mundo) means “everybody”, and prometer mundos e fundos “to promise the earth”.^[1][5]

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 l m n o p q r s Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. mundo
3. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. mundo
4. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. mundo
5. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 187
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. 346
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5748
8. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. monde
9. ^ 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. mundus
10. ^ 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. mundo
11. ^ a b Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. mundo
12. ^ 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. mundo
13. ^ a b c Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 328
14. ^ a b c d e f g Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. mundo
15. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. mundo
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. mundo
17. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. mundo
18. ^ Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. mundo
19. ^ 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. mundo
20. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. mundo