parvo

Forms

parvo (feminine parva, masculine plural parvos, feminine plural parvas)^[1] The old form is paruoo, of the 14th century.^[2][3] The feminine is parva or párvoa.^[4][5]

Etymology

In the view of Houaiss and Nascentes it is inherited from Latin parvulus (“very small, tiny”), with the loss of intervocalic /l/ giving the old Old Galician-Portuguese paruoo, whose /oo/ then merged into one vowel.^[2][6][7] The feminine went the same way, to párvoa or, through ⟨-oa⟩ > ⟨-aa⟩, to parva; this explains the stem ⟨parvo-⟩ of parvoíce (15th century) and parvoejar (16th century).^[2] The REW also starts from the diminutive and records the Old Portuguese form meaning “small”.^[8] Cunha, Wiktionary, the DLP and Michaelis start from parvus (“small”) itself.^{[3][1][9][10]} The Latin diminutive is formed from the adjective with the suffix -ulus.^[1]

The Latin adjective goes back to *pauro-, from *peh₂u-ro-, with a metathesis of *-ur- in Latin; its cognates include Ancient Greek παῦρος (paûros, “little”), Gothic 𐍆𐌰𐍅𐌰𐌹 (fawai, “few”) and Old English fēa.^[11] The same word is Galician parvo and Spanish parvo.^[1][12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The word is first recorded in the 14th century, as paruoo.^[2][3] Nascentes quotes it from the Inéditos de Alcobaça: Senhor Deus, eu som […] parvoo.^[7] The CTA's first prose record of paruoo is in the Vida do Infante Josafat (copied 1431–1446).^[13]

Semantic evolution

Cunha gives “small, limited” as the original sense and “ignorant, foolish” as an extension.^[3] Nascentes explains the change by the natural simplicity of children.^[6] Bluteau (1712–1728) quotes Duarte Nunes de Leão to the same effect: the old Portuguese called small boys parvos, as Latin did, and because the witless are like children in their understanding and speech, the word passed to them.^[14] At the university, Bluteau notes, conclusões parvas were the lesser disputations, set against the conclusões magnas.^[14][15] Vieira (1871–1874) calls the sense “small” little used, the sense “foolish” figurative and popular.^[16]

Today it means “foolish, stupid”, especially in Portugal.^[1][9]

Timeline

• 14th century – first record, as paruoo.^[2][3]
• 15th century – first record of the derivative parvoíce, spelt paruayçe.^[2][3]
• c. 1431–1446 – paruoo in the Vida do Infante Josafat.^[13]
• 16th century – párvoa and parvoejar are recorded.^[2][3]
• 1697 – Pereira glosses parvo with Latin bardus.^[17]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau explains the sense “fool” from the Latin “small” and records the conclusões parvas of the university.^[14]
• 1789 – Morais defines it as one who knows little and is foolish.^[15]

Meanings

Adjective

1. foolish, stupid; dim-witted.^[2][9][1]
2. gullible, easily fooled.^[9]
3. Showing foolishness: a parvo remark.^[4]
4. (rare) Small, limited.^[4][5][1]

Noun

1. A fool, an idiot.^[2][9][1]

Word family

• parvoíce
• parvoejar
• aparvalhado
• parvalhão

Related words

• párvulo
• parvidade
• Latin parvus
• Galician parvo

Usage notes

Bluteau records the adages a cada parvo agrada sua pousada “every fool likes his own lodging” and o parvo se he callado, por sabio he reputado “a fool who keeps quiet is taken for wise”.^[14] Augmentatives are parvalhão and parvoeirão.^[4][10]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. parvo
3. ^ a b c d e f g Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. parvo
4. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. parvo
5. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. parvo
6. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. parvo
7. ^ 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. 383
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6262
9. ^ a b c d e 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. parvo
10. ^ a b 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. parvo
11. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
12. ^ Estraviz, Isaac Alonso, Dicionário Estraviz, https://estraviz.org, p. s.v. parvo
13. ^ a b Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. paruoo
14. ^ a b c d Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. parvo
15. ^ 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, 164
16. ^ Vieira, Frei Domingos (1871–1874), Grande Diccionario Portuguez ou Thesouro da lingua portugueza, 5 vols., Porto: Ernesto Chardron e Bartholomeu H. de Moraes, p. 4, 684
17. ^ 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. parvo