palavra

Forms

palavra f (plural palavras)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote paravla, paravra, paravoa, palavla and palaura beside palavra.^[2][3][4] Later forms include paravõas (14th century) and palabras and palaurra (15th century).^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin parabola (“speech, word”), first written Old Galician-Portuguese paravla and Old Galician-Portuguese paravra.^[2][3][1] In classical Latin it meant “comparison, illustration”, a term of rhetoric, and it is from Ancient Greek παραβολή (parabolḗ, “comparison; parable”).^[2][1] parábola is the learned doublet.^[1]

The sound changes are discussed by Nascentes: the unstressed /o/ was lost (a form Vulgar Latin *parabla), the /b/ weakened to /v/ and the /l/ became /r/, giving the form with /vr/, and the first /r/ then became /l/ by dissimilation.^[5][6] Wiktionary describes the last step as a hyperthesis of the liquids.^[1]

The same Latin word is Galician palabra, Spanish palabra, Catalan paraula, Occitan paraula, French parole and Italian parola.^[7][1] In all of them it replaced verbum: the REW explains the double sense “parable” and “word” as a Hebrew pattern carried into Greek and Latin by the Church, after which popular speech kept only the second.^[7] Nascentes, after Darmesteter, holds that the Latin word had become the holy Word of the Gospel, so that ordinary speech no longer used it for a common word.^[6] The DCECH traces the path of the Spanish word from “comparison” to “sentence” and then to “word”.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantigas de Santa Maria have paravla mentireira “a lying word” and paravlas loucas “mad words”, and also aver bõa paravla “to speak edifying words”.^[4] The troubadour Pero da Ponte wrote amor sen prol é palavra doada “love without profit is a word given away”.^[4][9]

Semantic evolution

The Crónica Troiana writes outorgaron todos sua palabra “they all gave their word”.^[4] Barbosa (1611) gives dar palavra “to promise” and palavreyro “talkative”.^[10] Morais (1789) lists the promise, homem de palavra “a man who keeps his word” and the military passar palavra, an order passed from soldier to soldier.^[11] Modern senses include the right to speak in a meeting, a short speech, the teaching of a doctrine (a palavra de Deus) and, in computing, a unit of data; as an interjection palavra! affirms that one is telling the truth.^[2][12][1]

In West Africa the Portuguese word became a traders' term for talks with local people;^[13] English took it as palaver, recorded from 1733.^[13] From English it passed to Danish, German and Swedish, and Dutch has palaver too.^[1] The creoles have palabra and palavra in Guinea-Bissau and palava in Angolar.^[1]

Timeline

• 13th century – Houaiss's and Cunha's first date; the Cantigas de Santa Maria write paravla.^[2][3][4]
• 1375 – por sua paraboa in a document.^[4]
• 1431 – palavra in the Vida do Infante Josafat, its first use in the CTA corpus.^[14]
• 15th century – the derivative palavroso “wordy”.^[3]
• 1611 – Barbosa gives dar palavra “to promise”.^[10]
• 1733 – English palaver, from the Portuguese word.^[13]
• 1789 – Morais lists homem de palavra and passar palavra.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. A word: a unit of language, written between spaces; a vocábulo.^[2][15][1]
2. Something said or written; a statement or remark: não disse uma palavra durante o jantar.^[2][12]
3. The ability to speak; speech, fala.^[2]
4. A short address or speech given on a formal occasion.^[2]
5. The right or permission to speak: o presidente deu a palavra ao deputado.^[2][12][1]
6. A spoken promise; one's word of honour: homem de palavra.^[2][11][1]
7. The teaching of a doctrine, especially a palavra de Deus, the Scriptures.^[2][1]
8. (computing) A unit of data handled by a computer as a whole.^[12][1]

Interjection

1. Used to affirm that one is telling the truth: Palavra! Foi assim mesmo.^[2][16]

Word family

• apalavrar
• palavrada
• palavreado
• palavrear
• palavrório
• palavroso
• palavra-chave
• palavra-passe
• palavrão
• palavrinha
• passa-palavra

Related words

• parábola
• Galician palabra

Usage notes

Palavras cruzadas is the Portuguese name for a crossword.^[12]

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 Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. palavra
3. ^ a b c d Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. palavra
4. ^ 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. paravla
5. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. palavra
6. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 374
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6221
8. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 345
9. ^ 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. palavra
10. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. palavra
11. ^ a b c 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, 148
12. ^ a b c d e Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. palavra
13. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
14. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. palavra
15. ^ Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. palavra
16. ^ Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. palavra