papaia

Forms

papaia f (plural papaias)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Spanish papaya, recorded in Spanish from 1535, in Fernández de Oviedo.^[2][3][1][4] The Spanish word comes from a native language of the coast of the Caribbean Sea: Cunha calls it Cariban, and Corominas finds it impossible to decide between Carib and Arawak.^[3][4] Oviedo says it was the name used on Hispaniola;^[4] Corominas rejects a Quechua origin, since the Quechua and Tagalog forms were taken from Spanish and the word was well known in Hispaniola by 1535.^[4] Nascentes quotes earlier views: Lenz between Quechua and a language of Haiti or Venezuela, and Gonçalves Viana, who thought it American without being able to say from which language.^[5]

Gonçalves Viana dismissed as a jest the explanation of the friar Gaspar Afonso, who saw in the name the verb papar (“to eat up”), since the Spanish imperative would not make such a pun.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss and Cunha date the word to the 16th century.^[2][3] Dalgado's first quotation is Gaspar Afonso's account of the voyage of the ship São Francisco, of 1589: in Santo Domingo there were papayas, “which in Brazil we call mamões”.^[6][5]

Semantic evolution

In Brazil the fruit and the tree are mostly called mamão and mamoeiro, and the 18th-century writers still contrast the two names.^[6][7] The Portuguese brought the plant and its name to India, where Dalgado records papaia from 1782 on.^[6] From Portuguese the word passed into several languages of Asia and Africa, among them Konkani, Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali, Malay and Makhuwa.^[1]

Timeline

• 1535 – Spanish papaya first recorded, in Oviedo.^[4]
• 1589 – Gaspar Afonso writes of papayas in Santo Domingo.^[6]
• 1745 – a text notes that the papayas are called mamões in Brazil.^[6]
• 1782 – Clemente da Ressurreição records papaia as the Indian name of the fruit called mamão in America.^[6]
• 1899 – first record of the derivative papaína, taken from French.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. The papaya, fruit of the mamoeiro (Carica papaya), with thin yellow skin, orange flesh and dark seeds in the middle; mamão.^[2][8][1]
2. The papaya tree itself.^[7][9][1]

Word family

• papaína

Related words

• mamão
• mamoeiro
• Spanish papaya

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. papaia
3. ^ a b c d Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. papaia
4. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 386
5. ^ a b c Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 378
6. ^ a b c d e f Dalgado, Sebastião Rodolfo (1919–1921), Glossário luso-asiático, 2 vols., Coimbra: Imprensa da Universidade, p. 2, 165
7. ^ a b Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. papaia
8. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 6870
9. ^ 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. papaia