nação

Forms

nação f (plural nações)^[1] Houaiss records nações and nacões in the 14th century and naçom, naçoees and noçõoes in the 15th;^[2][3] Cunha has naçõ and the plural nasçiões in the 14th.^[2][3] Wiktionary gives the old spelling naçaõ.^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin nātiō (“birth; race, people”), by a semi-learned route, written Old Galician-Portuguese naçon in the oldest texts.^[2][4][1] The same Latin word is Spanish nación, Galician nazon and French nation.^[1]

The Latin noun is derived from nāscor (“to be born”).^[2][5] Wiktionary traces it to Proto-Italic *gnātiō (“family”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss's first date, from Cunha's slips of medieval Portuguese, is the 14th century, in the plural nações.^[2] Houaiss dates the sense “nationality, origin” to the 15th century, and the sense “autonomous political group” to the 16th.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Latin nātiō meant “people, race” and also “birth”.^[5][6] Medieval Latin used nationes for the pagans and for the student “nations” of the universities.^[7] Portuguese kept the biblical plural nações “the gentiles”.^[2] Morais (1813) defines nação as the people of a country with its own language, laws and government, and records gente de nação “descendants of Jews, New Christians”;^[8][2] Houaiss notes that from the 14th to the 18th centuries nação was an Iberian term for the Jews.^[8][2]

In Brazil the word was used for the indigenous peoples and for the African groups brought as slaves, a nação nagô, a nação cabinda; from these it names the ritual traditions of the candomblé.^[2][9] In north-eastern Brazil it also means a herd or breed of cattle or horses.^[10] Some dialects of Portugal, that of Barroso among them, keep the Latin sense “birth”.^[11]

Timeline

• 14th century – first record, in the plural nações.^[2][3]
• 15th century – naçom in the sense “nationality, origin”.^[2]
• 16th century – the spelling nação and the sense “autonomous political group”.^[2][3]
• 1541 – naçam in a private letter.^[12]
• 1569 – Cardoso translates Nação with Latin natio.^[13]
• 1813 – Morais records gente de nação.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. A nation: a self-governing people in a defined territory, sharing institutions and laws.^[2][14][1]
2. The territory of such a people, a country.^[2][1]
3. The whole people of a country: O presidente vai falar à nação.^[2]
4. The government or state of a nation.^[2]
5. One's homeland, native country.^[2][14]
6. Nationality, origin: imigrantes de nação italiana.^[2]
7. A community united by origin, customs or religion though dispersed: a nação judaica.^[2]
8. A kind, type, character shared by a group of people.^[2][14]
9. An indigenous people: a nação tupinambá.^[2][9]
10. (Brazil) Each of the African peoples or ethnolinguistic groups brought to Brazil as slaves; the ritual tradition each brought, which distinguishes the kinds of candomblé.^[2][9]
11. (historical) In the Iberian Peninsula from the 14th to the 18th century, the Jews.^[2][8]
12. (in the plural, biblical) The gentiles, the pagans.^[2]
13. (north-eastern Brazil) A herd or breed of cattle or horses.^[10]

Word family

• nacional
• internacional
• desnacionalizar

Related words

• nacionalidade
• nascer
• nativo
• nato
• Latin nātiō
• Spanish nación

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 m n o p q r s t u v w x y Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. nação
3. ^ a b c d Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. nação
4. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. nação
5. ^ 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
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5848a
7. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. natio
8. ^ a b c d Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 332
9. ^ a b c Wikcionário (Portuguese Wiktionary), pt.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. nação
10. ^ a b Navarro, Fred (2004), Dicionário do Nordeste, São Paulo: Estação Liberdade, p. s.v. nação
11. ^ Instituto da Lingua Galega, Tesouro do léxico patrimonial galego e portugués (TLPGP), Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, https://ilg.usc.gal/tesouro, p. s.v. nação
12. ^ 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. nação
13. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. nação
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. nação