navio

Forms

navio m (plural navios)^[1] Houaiss records the plural nauyos in 1391 and the form navos in the 15th century.^[2] Vieira (1871–1874) heads the word navio.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin nāvigium (“vessel, boat”), written Old Galician-Portuguese navio in the oldest texts.^[2][4][1] Nascentes explains the stressed /i/ by metaphony, following Nunes.^[5]

The same Latin word is Galician navío and Spanish navío, and Old French had navoi (“fleet”); French navire comes from a variant Vulgar Latin *navilium.^[6][7][1] The Latin noun is formed on nāvigō (“to sail”), from nāvis (“ship”), which goes back to Proto-Indo-European *néh₂us.^[8][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss and Cunha date it to the 13th century.^[2][4] The Cantigas de Santa Maria tell of men who came by sea con sas galeas e con mui gran navio “with their galleys and a great navio”, and of light, fast navios.^[9] A cantiga has U el-rei arma navio “where the king fits out a ship”.^[10]

Semantic evolution

The word has named a sea-going vessel from the first texts.^[2][9] The Crónica Troiana sets a naue beside outros navios menores “other smaller ships”, and the CTA finds it in the Horto do Esposo of about 1430.^[9][11] Bluteau (1712) lists navio de fogo “fireship”, navio de linha “ship of the line” and navio de vigia “guard ship”.^[12] Today the dictionaries define it as a large vessel, merchant or naval.^[2][13]

Brazil gave it local senses: a kind of kite in Alagoas and a hoarding round a hole in the street in Rio de Janeiro.^[14][15] In São Tomé the plural named the servants (serviçais) who had come on the same ship.^[16] Porto Editora records the popular sense “breastbone of a bird”.^[13]

Timeline

• 13th century – first records, in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[2][4][9]
• 1391 – the plural nauyos.^[2]
• c. 1430 – navio in the Horto do Esposo (copied 1390–1437).^[11]
• 15th century – the form navos.^[2]
• 1500 – navio in a private letter.^[17]
• 1697 – Pereira's Thesouro renders it by Latin navigium and navis.^[18]
• 1712 – Bluteau lists navio de fogo and navio de linha.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. A large ship, merchant or naval: O navio largou do porto ao amanhecer.^[2][19][1]
2. (by extension) Any ship with masts.^[13]
3. (Alagoas, Brazil) A kind of kite (papagaio).^[14][15]
4. (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) A hoarding put round a hole in the street.^[14]
5. (popular) The breastbone or keel of a bird.^[13]

Word family

• navio-escola
• navio-cisterna

Related words

• nau
• nave
• navegar
• Latin nāvigium
• Spanish navío

Usage notes

Ficar a ver navios “to be left watching ships” means to be disappointed, not to get what one hoped for.^[19][13][20]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. navio
3. ^ Vieira, Frei Domingos (1871–1874), Grande Diccionario Portuguez ou Thesouro da lingua portugueza, 5 vols., Porto: Ernesto Chardron e Bartholomeu H. de Moraes, p. 4, 409
4. ^ a b c Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. navio
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. 350
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5862
7. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. navire
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. nāvigium
9. ^ a b c d 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. navio
10. ^ 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. navio
11. ^ a b Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. navio
12. ^ 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. navio
13. ^ a b c d e Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 6449
14. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. navio
15. ^ a b Navarro, Fred (2004), Dicionário do Nordeste, São Paulo: Estação Liberdade, p. s.v. navio
16. ^ Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. navio
17. ^ 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. navio
18. ^ Pereira, Bento (1697), Thesouro da lingoa portuguesa, in the 1697 edition of his Prosodia (1st ed. 1647; CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. navio
19. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. navio
20. ^ 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. navio