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orelha

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Etymology and origin of the Portuguese word orelha

Confidence
Established
Formation
Inherited
First attested
1200s Cantigas de Santa Maria, spelt orellas More words from the 13th century
Inherited from
Latin oricula
Ultimate origin
Latin auris

Pronunciation

  • Brazil: /oˈɾe.ʎɐ/[1]
  • Portugal: /ɔˈɾɐ(j).ʎɐ/, /o(w)ˈɾɐ(j).ʎɐ/[1]
  • Northern, Portugal: /ɔˈɾe.ʎɐ/, /owˈɾe.ʎɐ/[1]
  • Central, Portugal: /ɔˈɾe.ʎɐ/, /o(w)ˈɾe.ʎɐ/[1]

Forms

orelha f (plural orelhas)[1] The medieval texts write orella, orelha, horelhas and orrelha.[2][3][4] Wiktionary lists ourelha as a dialect variant, and ourella survives in parts of Galicia.[1][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin ōricula (“ear”), a popular variant of auricula, written Old Galician-Portuguese orella and Old Galician-Portuguese orelha in the oldest texts.[2][3][1][4] Nascentes and Aurélio name the vulgar form oricla, and Corominas finds it in a Latin curse tablet;[5][6][7][1] Wiktionary explains the ⟨o⟩ as the popular merging of the diphthong ⟨au⟩.[5][6][7][1] The Latin word was a diminutive of auris (“ear”) that already replaced it in poets of the Silver Age and lives on in all the Romance languages.[2][7]

The same Latin word is Galician orella, Spanish oreja, Catalan orella, French oreille, Italian orecchia and Romanian ureche.[1][8] Corominas notes that the Portuguese, Mozarabic and western Leonese forms suggest that the vulgar form with ⟨o-⟩ prevailed in the Iberian Peninsula, while Occitan and Gascon keep ⟨au-⟩.[7]

The Latin noun for “ear” goes back to *aus- and to Proto-Indo-European *h₂ews- (“ear”), beside Ancient Greek οὖς (oûs), Lithuanian ausìs and Gothic 𐌰𐌿𐍃𐍉 (auso).[9][2] Beside the popular word Portuguese has the learned doublet aurícula.[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

A copy of a law text dated 1152 has prendant illos alcaldes illas orellas, a Latin sentence with the Romance noun, and a text of 1209 in the same collection has quantos dentes ou orellas ou dedos perdiren “as many teeth or ears or fingers as they lose”.[4] In the Cantigas de Santa Maria a cow comes con sas orellas merjudas “with drooping ears”, and a cantiga of Fernand' Esquio has nen ten rostro nen olhos nen orelhas.[4] The sense is the outer ear.[3][4]

Semantic evolution

The ear as the organ of hearing and the sense of hearing appear early: the Crónica Troiana has the saying todo esto me entra por hũa orella et me sal porla outra “all this goes in one ear and out the other”.[4] Morais (1789) records ouvir com orelhas surdas “to pretend not to hear”, ficar com as orelhas baixas “to be humbled” and torcer a orelha “to repent”.[10] Barbosa (1611) already has orelhas de abbade, a kind of pastry.[11]

From the shape of the outer ear the word was applied to many flaps and projections: the claw of a hammer, the volute of a Corinthian capital, the mouldboards of a plough, a tab on a file card, and the flaps of a book's jacket with their text about the author.[2][12] In the new anatomical terminology orelha has replaced ouvido for the whole organ (orelha externa, média, interna).[2][13] The word passed into Kabuverdianu and Guinea-Bissau Creole as oredja and into Papiamentu as orea.[1]

Timeline

  • 1152 – illas orellas in a Latin law text, known from a copy.[4]
  • 1209 – quantos dentes ou orellas ou dedos perdiren in a text of the Portugaliae Monumenta Historica.[4]
  • 13th century – orellas in the Cantigas de Santa Maria;[4][2] orelhas in cantigas of Pero d'Armea and Fernand' Esquio.[4][2]
  • c. 1430 – orelha in the Horto do Esposo (copied 1390–1437).[14]
  • 15th century – first record of orelhudo “big-eared”, in Cunha's addenda.[3]
  • 1569 – Cardoso glosses orelha with Latin auris.[15]
  • 1611 – Barbosa lists falar á orelha and orelhas de abbade.[11]
  • 1789 – Morais records torcer a orelha and ficar com as orelhas baixas.[10]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (anatomy) The organ of hearing, with its outer, middle and inner parts (formerly called ouvido).[2][13]
  2. The outer ear, the shell-shaped cartilage on each side of the head; auricle: o cão levantou as orelhas.[2][6][1]
  3. An ear for sounds; hearing: tem orelha para o canto.[2][6]
  4. Any flap, tab or projection shaped like an ear: the claw of a hammer, a tab on an index card, the volute of a Corinthian capital.[2][16][1]
  5. (bookbinding) Each of the flaps of a book's cover or jacket folded inwards, often with a note on the book or its author.[2][13][1]
  6. (Brazil, informal) A dog-ear, an unwanted fold at the corner of a page.[1]
  7. (botany) An ear-shaped appendage at the base of some leaves.[16][17]

Word family

  • orelhada
  • orelhano
  • orelhudo
  • orelhão
  • orelhar
  • orelheira
  • orelha-de-burro
  • orelha-de-pau

Usage notes

Common phrases include com a pulga atrás da orelha “suspicious” (literally “with the flea behind the ear”), de orelha em pé “on the alert”, até as orelhas “up to the ears, completely” and puxão de orelhas “a telling-off”.[1][2][18] Houaiss gives the stressed vowel as /ê/;[2][16] Priberam gives both /â/ and /ê/.[2][16]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q 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 Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. orelha
  3. ^ a b c d Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. orelha
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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. orella
  5. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. orelha
  6. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. orelha
  7. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 293
  8. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. auricula
  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. ^ 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, 138
  11. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. orelha
  12. ^ Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. orelha
  13. ^ a b c 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. orelha
  14. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. orelha
  15. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. orelha
  16. ^ a b c d Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. orelha
  17. ^ 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. orelha
  18. ^ Schlee, Aldyr Garcia (2019), Dicionário da Cultura Pampeana Sul-Rio-Grandense, 2 vols., Pelotas: Fructos do Paiz, p. s.v. orelha

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Orelha.” Etymologically, 15 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/pt/orelha. Accessed 16 Nov. 2026.

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