natural

Forms

natural m or f (plural naturais)^[1] Old plurals include naturaes, naturães, naturaaes and naturaees (1365); naturall is a 15th-century spelling.^[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin nātūrālis (“by birth; natural”), recorded from the 13th century and written Old Galician-Portuguese natural in the oldest texts.^[2][3][4][1] Nascentes counts it among the learned words.^[4]

The same Latin word is Galician natural, Spanish natural, French naturel, Italian naturale and Romanian natural.^[1][5][6]

The Latin adjective is formed from nātūra (“birth; nature”) with the suffix -ālis, and the noun from nāscor (“to be born”).^[7][8][1] The verb goes back to Proto-Italic *gnāskōr, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵenh₁- (“to give birth”).^[1][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss and Cunha date the word to the 13th century.^[2][3] In the Cancioneiro da Ajuda it means “native of a land” (natural de) and appears in senhor natural, a lord by right of birth; the Crónica Troiana has it for “native”, for “lawful” (nosso señor natural “our lawful lord”) and for “ordinary” (cousa natural et comunal de todos “a natural thing, common to all”).^[10] The secular cantigas also use it of kinship by blood.^[11]

Semantic evolution

The medieval word was largely legal and social: the natural of a monastery was a descendant of its founders and patrons, entitled to board there, as a document of 1315 shows (elle era Natural do dito Moesteiro “he was a natural of the said monastery”).^[12][13] The noun “native, countryman” goes back to the cantigas.^[14]

Bluteau (1712–1728) gives the noun the sense “temperament, inclination”, as in ter bom natural “to have a good disposition”.^[15] Morais (1789) has “belonging to nature” and “born in”, with meu natural for “my compatriot”.^[16] Modern dictionaries add food with no artificial ingredients, drinks at room temperature, the musical note without an accidental, and, in north-eastern Brazil, “one's native land”.^[2][17]

Timeline

• 13th century – first record.^[2][3]
• 1315 – a document calls a man Natural do dito Moesteiro.^[12]
• 1365 – the plurals naturaaes and naturaees.^[2]
• c. 1430 – first occurrence in the CTA corpus, in the Horto do Esposo.^[18]
• 15th century – the spelling naturall.^[2]
• 16th century – desnatural first recorded.^[19]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau lists the noun “temperament”.^[15]
• 1789 – Morais gives the senses “of nature” and “native”.^[16]
• 1813 – naturalidade, naturalista and naturalizar first recorded.^[19]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of or relating to nature (natureza); produced by nature.^[2][20][21]
2. Without human work or intervention: as florestas naturais da serra.^[2][21]
3. Following the regular order of things; logical, expected.^[2][20]
4. Inborn, innate; instinctive.^[2][21]
5. Spontaneous, unaffected: Fala de um modo muito natural.^[2][17]
6. Likely, to be presumed: É natural que ela esteja cansada.^[2]
7. Born in, coming from (a place): O pai era natural do Porto.^[2][1]
8. (music) Not altered by an accidental.^[2]
9. Of food: made without artificial additives or pesticides.^[2]
10. Of a drink: at room temperature, not chilled.^[17][1]

Noun

1. A native of a place.^[2][21]
2. Character, temperament (índole), disposition: ter bom natural.^[2][21]
3. What is in keeping with nature; reality, the original.^[2][21]
4. (mathematics) A natural number (short for número natural).^[2]
5. (north-eastern Brazil, informal) One's native land.^[2]

Word family

• naturalidade
• naturalismo
• naturalista
• naturalizar
• naturalmente
• desnatural

Related words

• natura
• natureza
• naturismo
• nascer
• Latin nātūrālis
• Spanish natural

Usage notes

Ao natural is said of food eaten as it was picked or prepared without additions.^[2][21]

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 p q r s t u v Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. natural
3. ^ a b c Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. natural
4. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. natural
5. ^ 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. natural
6. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. naturel
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. nātūrālis
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. nātūra
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ 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. natural
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. natural1
12. ^ a b 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, 169
13. ^ Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 335
14. ^ 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. natural2
15. ^ 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. natural
16. ^ 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, 109
17. ^ a b c Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 6440
18. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. natural
19. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. natura
20. ^ a b Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. natural
21. ^ a b c d e f g 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. natural