olmo

Forms

olmo m (plural olmos)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin ulmus (“elm”), written Old Galician-Portuguese olmo in the oldest texts.^[2][3][1][4]

The same Latin word is Galician olmo, Spanish olmo, Catalan om, French orme, Italian olmo and Romanian ulm.^[5][1]

De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *olmos, from earlier *elmos, and compares Old Irish lem, Russian ильм (ilʹm) and English elm; because the word is found only in Italic, Celtic, Germanic and Slavic and is hard to reconstruct, he suspects a non-Indo-European origin.^[6] Wiktionary derives it from Proto-Indo-European *h₁élem (“mountain elm”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

A Latin charter of 1153 already has the Romance plural in a place name, ad ipsam gargantam de olmos.^[3] The first Portuguese text is the Crónica Geral de Espanha of 1344, where a king is raised “under an elm” (so hũu olmo).^[3]

Semantic evolution

The Estoria in Galician has Jacob take “rods of elms” (varas de olmos), and a Franciscan chronicle has a prior hanged from an elm in the cloister, spelt ollmo.^[3] Cardoso (1569) glosses it with Latin ulmus, Barbosa (1611) adds the Latin for “made of elm” and “a place of many elms”, and Bluteau gives the variants ulmo and ulmeyro.^[7][8][9] Modern dictionaries name it for the trees of the genus Ulmus, with many compound names for the species; the Academia's dictionary refers it to the synonym ulmeiro.^[2][10]

Timeline

• 1153 – de olmos in a place name of a Latin charter.^[3]
• 1344 – so hũu olmo in the Crónica Geral de Espanha.^[3]
• 1400s – the spelling ollmo.^[2]
• 1569 – Cardoso's dictionary lists olmo.^[7]
• 1611 – Barbosa adds Latin terms for elm wood and an elm grove.^[8]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau lists olmo, ulmo and ulmeyro.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. elm: any deciduous tree of the genus Ulmus, with asymmetric toothed leaves and winged fruits; ulmeiro, negrilho.^[2][11][1]

Related words

• ulmeiro
• olmeiro
• ulmo
• Spanish olmo

Usage notes

The vowel is closed /o/ in the singular and in the plural olmos.^[12] Older and parallel forms are ulmo, olmeiro and ulmeiro.^[2][11]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. olmo
3. ^ a b c d e f 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. olmo
4. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. olmo
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 9036
6. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
7. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. olmo
8. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. olmo
9. ^ 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. olmo
10. ^ 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. olmo
11. ^ a b Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. olmo
12. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. olmo