ouro

Forms

ouro m (plural ouros)^[1] Old forms are our’ (before a vowel), houro, oro and ourro.^[2] The variant oiro is old too: Feijó (1734) gives ouro and oiro together, and Aurélio still lists it.^[3][4][1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin aurum (“gold”), written Old Galician-Portuguese ouro in the oldest texts.^[2][5][6][1] Portuguese and Galician keep a diphthong here, while Spanish oro, Italian oro, French or and Catalan or have a plain vowel and Romanian aur and Old Occitan aur keep the Latin one.^[7][8] Nascentes cites Festus for a rustic Latin form orum.^[9][10]

The Latin word goes back to *auzom;^[11][1] Paul the Deacon's abridgement of Festus gives a Sabine form ausum.^[11][1] De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Indo-European *h₂é-h₂us-o- (“glow”), and its cognates are Lithuanian áuksas and Old Prussian ausis “gold”.^[11] Wiktionary connects it with *h₂ews- (“to dawn, become light”), and the OLD compares aurōra (“dawn”).^[1][12]

Earliest recorded meaning

A charter of 1228 sets a fine of ten thousand de ouro, “of gold”.^[13] The Cantigas de Santa Maria speak of a chest made of gold (hũa arca feita d’ouro), of cloths woven with gold (panos d’ouro teçudos) and of our’e prata “gold and silver”.^[13] The metal, its objects and its wealth are there from the start.^[5]

Semantic evolution

Gold thread for embroidery appears in the cantigas d'amigo, and another cantiga has the phrase trager o our’e o mouro “to bring everything, real and imagined”.^[13][14] Barbosa's dictionary of 1611 already has ouro fino, ouro lavrado “worked gold” and ouro falso.^[15] Morais (1789) adds ouro bruto or virgem, gold as it comes from the mine, and the colour of gold in heraldry.^[16]

Modern Portuguese uses the word for money and wealth, for the colour, and in the plural for the suit of diamonds, which Nascentes explains by the gold coins painted on the old cards.^[2][6] Figurative compounds name other riches: ouro negro is oil, and in Brazil also rubber;^[2] ouro branco is cotton and ouro verde the coffee plantation.^[2]

Timeline

• 1228 – de ouro in a charter.^[13]
• 13th century – the Cantigas de Santa Maria use ouro and our’e prata.^[13]
• 1416 – first record in the CTA, in the Vida de Santo Aleixo.^[17]
• 1569 – Cardoso's dictionary glosses ouro with Latin aurum.^[18]
• 1611 – Barbosa lists ouro fino, ouro lavrado and ouro falso.^[15]
• 1734 – Feijó gives the spellings ouro and oiro.^[3]
• 1789 – Morais describes the metal and its kinds.^[16]

Meanings

Noun

1. gold, the chemical element of atomic number 79 (symbol Au), a heavy, soft, yellow precious metal.^[2][4][1]
2. money; wealth, riches: Gastou todo o ouro que tinha.^[2][4]
3. A coin or object of gold; gold jewellery.^[4][19]
4. Gold thread used in embroidery.^[2]
5. A bright golden colour: o ouro das searas.^[2][20][1]
6. (figurative) A person or thing of great value.^[19]
7. (heraldry) The yellow tincture, or.^[2][20]
8. (in the plural, card games) The suit of diamonds.^[2][19][1]

Word family

• ourar
• ouro-fio
• ouro branco
• ouro negro
• ouro falso

Related words

• áureo
• auréola
• aurífero
• dourar
• ourives
• ouropel
• Latin aurum
• Galician ouro
• Spanish oro

Usage notes

Fixed phrases include de ouro “excellent”, nadar em ouro “to be very rich” (Brazil) and the proverb nem tudo que reluz é ouro “all that glitters is not gold”.^[2]

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 Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. ouro
3. ^ a b Feijó, João de Morais Madureira (1734), Orthographia, ou Arte de escrever, e pronunciar com acerto a lingua portugueza, Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. ouro
4. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. ouro
5. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. ouro
6. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. ouro
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 800
8. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. aurum
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. 370
10. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. aurum
11. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
12. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ a b c d e 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. ouro
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. ouro
15. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. ouro
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, 142
17. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. ouro
18. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. ouro
19. ^ a b c Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 6780
20. ^ a b 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. ouro