pão

Forms

pão m (plural pães)^[1] Houaiss records the medieval forms pan (1047), pã, pam and pom and the plurals pães, pãães and paiees in the 14th century, and paõ and pãis in the 15th.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin pānis (“bread, loaf”), written Old Galician-Portuguese pan in the oldest texts.^[2][1][3] Nascentes traces the modern form through the old Old Galician-Portuguese pam.^[4]

The same Latin word is Galician pan, Spanish pan, Catalan pa, French pain, Italian pane and Romanian pâine.^[5][1]

The origin of the Latin noun is uncertain: its link with pāstillus (“small cake, pastille”) points to an older *pāstnis, and many scholars connect it with the root Proto-Indo-European *peh₂- (“to graze”), as the OLD does with pāscō (“to feed, graze”).^[6][1][7] De Vaan doubts this, since he cannot see how “graze” became “bread” with the suffix alone, and offers no alternative.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss's first date, 1047, comes from Machado's records.^[2] The first vernacular record in the DDGM is a charter of 1228: uendan seu pan e seu uino “let them sell their bread and their wine”; one of 1257 owes xiiij octauas de pam, fourteen measures of grain.^[3] In the Cantigas de Santa Maria the word means both bread (carn'e pescado e pan, fasting a pan e agua) and grain (acharon tanto pan / que os orreos foron chẽos “they found so much grain that the granaries were full”).^[3]

Semantic evolution

The transfer from the bread to the cereal it is made of is old and shared with Spanish.^[8] A notarial book of Noia of 1390 speaks of quanto pan lauráremos “all the grain we grow”, and in Trás-os-Montes pão means rye.^[3][5] The cantigas d'escarnho use un pan for something worthless: non valredes un pan “you will not be worth a loaf”.^[3]

Barbosa (1611) lists bread of wheat, barley, rye and millet, and Morais (1813) records the plural pães for the cereal grains and their plants.^[9][10] Houaiss adds the consecrated host, a lump or ingot of metal and, in informal Brazilian use, a good-looking person.^[2] Wiktionary records the dated Portuguese slang sense “a punch”.^[1]

The word passed into the Portuguese-based creoles, as pom in Kabuverdianu, pon in Guinea-Bissau Creole, pang in Kristang and pan in Papiamentu, and was borrowed into Japanese パン (pan) and Malay paung.^[1]

Timeline

• 1047 – the first date Houaiss gives.^[2]
• 1228 – uendan seu pan e seu uino in a charter.^[3]
• 1257 – pam “grain” in a charter.^[3]
• 13th century – pan for bread and for grain in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[3]
• 14th century – the spellings pã, pam and pom.^[2]
• 1390 – quanto pan lauráremos in a notarial book of Noia.^[3]
• 15th century – the spelling paõ.^[2]
• 1513 – the Livro dos Mártires uses pão.^[11]
• 1569 – Cardoso translates pão as Latin panis.^[12]
• 1611 – Barbosa lists pão de trigo, pão de cevada, pão de centêo and pão de milho.^[9]
• 1813 – Morais records pães for the cereals.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. bread, food made of flour, especially wheat flour, kneaded with water and yeast and baked: Comprámos pão quente de manhã.^[2][13][1]
2. The dough of bread before baking.^[2][13]
3. cereal: the plant or grain of wheat, maize or rye;^[2][14] terras de pão “land sown with cereals”.^[2][14]
4. A food of denser dough that resembles bread: pão de queijo.^[2]
5. (figurative) Daily sustenance; a livelihood.^[2][1]
6. (liturgy) The consecrated host.^[2]
7. A lump of some substance; an ingot or bar of metal.^[2]
8. (Brazil, informal) A good-looking person, especially a man.^[2][1]
9. (Portugal, dated slang) A punch.^[1]

Word family

• padaria
• padeiro
• panado
• panar
• paneiro
• panificar
• panificação

Related words

• acompanhar
• companheiro
• companhia
• Latin panis
• Galician pan

Usage notes

Pão, pão, queijo, queijo “bread, bread, cheese, cheese” means “frankly, without beating about the bush”.^[13][15] The proverb casa onde não há pão, todos ralham e ninguém tem razão says that in a house without bread everyone quarrels and nobody is right.^[1]

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 n o p Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. pão
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. pan
4. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. pão
5. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
6. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 364
9. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. pão
10. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 391
11. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. pão
12. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. pão
13. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. pão
14. ^ a b Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. pão
15. ^ Wikcionário (Portuguese Wiktionary), pt.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. pão