pagode

Forms

pagode m (plural pagodes)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Malayalam പകോതി (pakōti), a name of the goddess and of her temple in the Dravidian languages of southern India, from Sanskrit भगवती (bhagavatī, “goddess, the Holy One”).^[2][3][1] Houaiss and Cunha name the Malayalam form and a Tamil one beside it.^[2][3] Wiktionary also points to close cognates in Kannada and Tamil.^[1]

The origin was long disputed, and Dalgado reviewed the proposals: a Chinese name for a pagoda, the word pagão (“pagan”), a Sinhalese word for a Buddhist shrine, and a Persian compound meaning “house of idols”, put forward by Ovington, Littré, Devic and Burnell and later by Lokotsch.^[4][5] He rejected them on grounds of form and history: the Persian word is too far from the Portuguese one and does not explain all its senses, and the Portuguese knew the word in India before they had dealings with China.^[4][5] Following Yule, he preferred the Sanskrit word in its feminine form, the title of Durgā or Kālī, the usual guardian goddess of villages in southern India; the Dravidian languages, which lack aspirated consonants, regularly change its consonants, and Gundert records the Malayalam form as a name of Durgā.^[4][5] Gonçalves Viana held the origin still unknown, and Silva Bastos called it controversial.^[5][6]

Through Portuguese the word spread to the other languages of Europe: French pagode, Spanish pagoda, Italian pagoda, German Pagode and the English word pagoda.^[3][1][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record that Houaiss gives is the Livro of Duarte Barbosa, of 1516, in the sense “temple”.^[2] Dalgado quotes Barbosa on the houses of prayer of a caste of Malabar, “which they call Pagodes”, and, under 1525, the Crónica dos Reis de Bisnaga on dancing girls who dance before the pagode, the idol.^[4] Dalgado argued, against the usual view, that the sense “idol” came first, and the Jesuit Francisco de Sousa wrote in 1697 that the Portuguese in India used the word for both idols and heathen temples.^[4]

Semantic evolution

From the Hindu temple and its idol the word was extended to mosques and to Buddhist shrines, and in the Far East to the tiered towers of Buddhist temples.^[2][3][4] Houaiss dates the sense “idol” to 1525.^[2][3] From 1595 the word also named a gold coin of southern India, struck with the image of a god.^[2][3][4]

In Portugal it took a sense far from the temple: a noisy or licentious party, a spree.^[2][3] Houaiss dates it to 1555 and Cunha to about 1560, and Jorge Ferreira de Vasconcelos and Francisco Manuel de Melo already use fazer pagodes as a familiar phrase.^[2][3][5][8] Dalgado and Gonçalves Viana explain it from the loud festivals held at the Indian temples, with their dancing girls, which Portuguese who had been in India would have brought home as a word for revelry.^[5][9]

In Brazil it came to mean a popular dance or party and, in the 20th century, a kind of samba, in particular the style of partido alto that arose in Rio de Janeiro in the 1970s, and the gathering where it is played.^[2][10] Brazilian Portuguese also uses it for mockery, and in Alagoas for the coco dance.^[2][11][12]

Timeline

• 1516 – first record, in Duarte Barbosa's Livro, for a temple.^[2]
• 1525 – first record of the sense “idol”.^[2][3]
• 1555 – first record of the sense “noisy party, spree” (Cunha: about 1560).^[2][3]
• 1595 – the gold coin of southern India called pagode.^[2][3][4]
• 1697 – Pereira's Thesouro glosses Pagode with Latin idolum.^[13]
• 1720 – Bluteau explains the coin as named after the idol stamped on it.^[4]
• 1789 – Morais gives the temple, the idol, the coin and fazer pagodes, “to hold revels”.^[8]
• 20th century – in Brazil, the name of a kind of samba.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A temple of India and other parts of Asia, usually a tower of several storeys with a roof at each, the eaves often turned up at the tips; a pagoda.^[2][11][1]
2. An idol worshipped in such a temple.^[2][11][14]
3. (informal) A noisy or licentious party; pândega, merrymaking.^[2][15][16]
4. (Brazil) A popular dance or party.^[2]
5. (Brazil, music) A kind of samba, especially the variety of partido alto born in Rio de Janeiro in the 1970s; also the gathering where it is played and sung, and the place where it is held.^[2][10]
6. (Brazil, informal) mockery, teasing.^[2][11]
7. (Alagoas) The coco dance.^[2][12]
8. (historical, numismatics) A gold coin formerly current in southern India.^[2][14]

Word family

• pagodeira
• pagodento
• pagodice
• pagodismo

Related words

• English pagoda

Usage notes

In Brazil de pagode means “in abundance, a great deal”.^[2][17]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h 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 q r s t u v w x Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. pagode
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. pagode
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Dalgado, Sebastião Rodolfo (1916), Contribuições para a lexicologia luso-oriental, Lisboa: Academia das Sciências, p. 149
5. ^ a b c d e f Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 373
6. ^ Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. pagode
7. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ 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, 146
9. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. pagode
10. ^ a b 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. pagode
11. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. pagode
12. ^ a b Navarro, Fred (2004), Dicionário do Nordeste, São Paulo: Estação Liberdade, p. s.v. pagode
13. ^ 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. pagode
14. ^ 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. pagode
15. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. pagode
16. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 6813
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. pagode