pó

Forms

pó m (usually uncountable, plural pós)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote poo, plural poos; the Galician General Estoria has poluo.^[2][3] Feijó (1734) prescribes the plural pós and rejects poses.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *pulus, from *pulvus, a Vulgar Latin form of Latin pulvis (“dust”) that passed into the second declension; the oldest texts write it Old Galician-Portuguese poo.^[3][5][1][6] Nascentes explains the new form by the model of neuters such as latus, onus and opus.^[6] Houaiss and Nascentes trace the later steps: the /w/ was absorbed into the vowel before it, the /l/ between vowels was lost, and the two vowels that met merged into one.^[3][6]

The same Latin word is Galician po, Spanish polvo, Catalan pols, Italian polvere and Romanian pulbere.^[7][1] Old Spanish still had a singular Old Spanish polvos, which Corominas also derives from the neuter form.^[8] French poussière is a derivative of Old French pous, from the same Vulgar Latin form.^[9]

The origin of the Latin word is debated: Wiktionary gives the traditional derivation from Proto-Indo-European *pel- (“flour, dust”), comparing pollen (“fine flour”) and Ancient Greek πάλη (pálē, “dust, meal”).^[1] De Vaan is sceptical: he reconstructs *pelH-u- (“chaff”) and compares palea (“chaff”).^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The word is in the Cantigas de Santa Maria of the second half of the 13th century: one cantiga has que foss' en poo tornada “that she be turned to dust”, another fez logo dela poos “at once made dust of it”.^[2][3] In the Crónica Troiana Polidamas falls from his horse and his helmet rolls ẽna terra et ẽno poo “in the earth and in the dust”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Besides dust, the word soon named powders: a cantiga d'escarnho of Martin Moxa already speaks of carrying off a great sack of someone's poos.^[2][11] Morais (1813) lists the finest part of earth, stone or glass, gold dust, the pós of medicinal roots and hair powder, and the phrases nascer no pó “to be born in the dust, of low birth” and levantar do pó “to raise from a low condition”.^[12] The old Caldas Aulete adds pó de arroz “face powder”, the figurative sense “something of no value”, fazer em pó “to destroy”, the Brazilian slang sense “cocaine” and a northern sense “snuff”.^[13] Dust as what the body returns to is the sense of pó és e em pó hás de tornar-te “dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return”.^[14]

Dialect surveys record further senses: powdery mildew in Portugal, and in Brazil the dirt winnowed from threshed beans and used coffee grounds.^[15] The word passed into Guinea-Bissau Creole as po.^[1]

Timeline

• 13th century, second half – poo and poos in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[2][3]
• 14th century – poluo in the Galician General Estoria.^[2][3]
• c. 1430 – the Horto do Esposo (copied 1390–1437) writes poo and póó.^[16]
• 15th century – the spelling pó.^[3][5]
• 1536 – first record of empoado “covered with dust”, the participle of empoar.^[17]
• 1554 – first record of poeira “dust”.^[18]
• 1697 – Pereira glosses pó as Latin pulvis.^[19]
• 1734 – Feijó prescribes the plural pós.^[4]
• 1813 – Morais lists pó de oiro, the medicinal pós and hair powder.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. dust: fine particles of dry earth that float in the air and settle on surfaces; poeira: Os móveis estavam cobertos de pó.^[3][20][1]
2. powder, any solid substance reduced to very fine particles: café em pó.^[3][20][1]
3. (pharmacy) A medicine in powdered form.^[3][20][21]
4. Face powder, pó de arroz.^[21][14][20]
5. (figurative) Something of no value.^[20][22][23]
6. (figurative) The remains of the body after death; death.^[14][23]
7. (Brazil, slang) cocaine.^[20][14][1]
8. (north-eastern Brazil) snuff, rapé.^[20][14]

Word family

• poeira
• poento
• empoar
• empoeirar
• desempoar
• pó de arroz
• antipó

Related words

• pólen
• pólvora
• pulverizar
• Latin pulvis
• Galician po
• Spanish polvo

Usage notes

Fixed phrases include morder o pó “to bite the dust”, ouro em pó “gold dust”, said of something pure and excellent, and in Portugal sacudir o pó a alguém “to give someone a beating”.^[23][22]

Wiktionary also records a colloquial, nonstandard pó that is a contraction of para o, not this noun.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. poo
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. pó
4. ^ 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. pó
5. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. pó
6. ^ a b c Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. pó
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6842
8. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 599
9. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. poussière
10. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ 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. poo
12. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 460
13. ^ 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. pó
14. ^ a b c d e 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. pó
15. ^ Instituto da Lingua Galega, Tesouro do léxico patrimonial galego e portugués (TLPGP), Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, https://ilg.usc.gal/tesouro
16. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. poo
17. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. empoar
18. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. poeira
19. ^ 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. pó
20. ^ a b c d e f g Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. pó
21. ^ a b 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. pó
22. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. pó
23. ^ a b c Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 7276