nave

Forms

nave f (plural naves)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote both nave and naue.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin nāvis (“ship”), written Old Galician-Portuguese nave in the oldest texts.^[2][3][4][1] Houaiss and Nascentes note that in later Latin the word gave way to nāvigium (“vessel”), the source of navio.^[2][4] The nau of the Portuguese voyages is a separate borrowing of Catalan nau, from the same Latin word.^[5][6]

The church sense, “the body of a church”, comes according to Houaiss from comparing the church with a ship;^[2][4] Nascentes thinks of the church as the boat of Saint Peter.^[2][4] Medieval Latin already used navis for the nave of a church.^[7][8] In his fuller dictionary Nascentes cites Meyer-Lübke for an origin of this sense in Ancient Greek ναός (naós, “temple”), a view that Silva Bastos also mentions with a question mark.^[9][10]

The same Latin word is Galician nave, Spanish nave, Italian nave, French nef and Romanian naie.^[11][1] It goes back to Proto-Indo-European *néh₂us (“ship”), like Ancient Greek ναῦς (naûs) and Sanskrit नौ (nau).^[12][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the 13th century nave meant a ship: the Cantigas de Santa Maria tell of hũa nav' ya per mar “a ship going by sea”, and Gonçal' Eanes do Vinhal mocks a man who does not care for the sea pola nave quebrar “because the ship may break”.^[13][14]

Semantic evolution

As the ship word nau and navio took over, nave became a poetic word for a ship: Bluteau refers it to nao and quotes the sonnets of Faria e Sousa.^[15][2] Morais (1789) gives both the poetic ship and the nave da igreja, the main part of a church where the people stand.^[16] Architects later used the word for each of the long aisles divided by rows of columns.^[2][17]

In the 20th century the old ship sense came back in nave espacial “spaceship” and nave-mãe “mother ship”, and nave alone can mean a spaceship.^[2][1] In Brazilian slang it is also a car.^[1]

Timeline

• 13th century – first record, as nave and naue, “ship”.^[2][3]
• 13th century, second half – nave in the Cantigas de Santa Maria and in a satirical cantiga of Gonçal' Eanes do Vinhal.^[13]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau enters nave as a poetic word for nao.^[15]
• 1789 – Morais records nave da igreja.^[16]

Meanings

Noun

1. (architecture) The nave: the long central space of a church, from the entrance to the altar.^[2][18][1]
2. (architecture) Each of the long divisions of a church separated by rows of columns; an aisle.^[2][19]
3. (figurative) A church, a temple.^[2][18]
4. (archaic, poetic) A ship, a vessel.^[2][20][1]
5. A spaceship, short for nave espacial.^[21][1]
6. (Brazil, slang) A car.^[1]

Word family

• astronave
• espaçonave

Related words

• naval
• navegar
• navio
• nau
• Latin nāvis
• Galician nave

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 Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. nave
3. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. navegar
4. ^ a b c d Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. nave
5. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. nau
6. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. nau
7. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. navis
8. ^ du Cange, Charles du Fresne, et al. (1883–1887), Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, augmented ed. by Léopold Favre, Niort: L. Favre, p. s.v. navis
9. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 350
10. ^ Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. nave
11. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5863
12. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
13. ^ a b 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. nave
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. nave
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. nave
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, 110
17. ^ 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. nave
18. ^ a b Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. nave
19. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. nave
20. ^ 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. nave
21. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 6447