peão

Forms

peão m (plural peões, feminine peã or peoa or peona, feminine plural peãs or peoas or peonas)^[1] The old forms are peon (13th century), peõ (14th century) and piom, pyam, plural pioões, pioees and pions (15th century).^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Medieval Latin pedo (“one who goes on foot; foot soldier”), written Old Galician-Portuguese peon in the oldest texts.^[2][3][1] Aurélio gives the etymon as pedone.^[4] Wiktionary calls the word an early semi-learned borrowing.^[4][1] The Latin noun is derived from pēs (“foot”).^[2][1] Nascentes explains that the Latin noun meant “one with big feet”, while the glossaries have the Vulgar Latin form for one who goes on foot, an infantryman.^[5][6]

The same word is Galician peón, Spanish peón, French pion and Italian pedone.^[1] French also has péon, borrowed from the Spanish word.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the Cantigas de Santa Maria a peon is a foot soldier: Duas lançadas lle deu un peon “a foot soldier struck him twice with a lance”, and armies are made of almogavares muitos, peões e baesteiros “many raiders, foot soldiers and crossbowmen”.^[8] In a cantiga d'escarnho of Alfonso X, a nobleman goes to war with a great band of peões, “all bald and without lances”.^[8]

Semantic evolution

The medieval peon was a man who fought on foot, as opposed to the knight, and so also a commoner.^[9][8] Morais cites the Foral de Thomar for the cavalleiro peão, a man not of noble birth who served on horseback, and the chronicles of Couto and João de Barros speak of hundreds of local peões or peães fighting on foot.^[10][11] The name of the chess piece, the weakest on the board, follows from the foot soldier, and Houaiss dates it to 1720.^[2][5] In bullfighting the peão is the torero who fights on foot, and in Portugal the word now means a pedestrian.^[2][12]

The Brazilian senses come from the Spanish of the River Plate, where peón was a servant on a ranch: Houaiss treats this peão as a separate borrowing, recorded from 1642, and Aurélio and Nascentes agree on the Platine Spanish source.^[2][4][5] Schlee notes that peón has the same sense in Uruguay and Argentina.^[13] From the ranch hand the word spread to a horse breaker, a drover, a farm labourer and a labourer on roads, railways and building sites.^[2][4]

Timeline

• 13th century – peon and peões “foot soldiers” in the Cantigas de Santa Maria and the cantigas d'escarnho.^[8][2]
• 14th century – the spelling peõ.^[3]
• 15th century – the spellings piom, pyam and the plurals pioões, pions.^[2][3]
• 1642 – first record of the ranch hand's peão, from Platine Spanish.^[2]
• 1720 – first record of the chess sense.^[2]
• 1813 – Morais records cavalleiro peão from the Foral de Thomar.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. (Portugal) A pedestrian, a person who goes on foot: Os peões devem atravessar na passadeira.^[2][12][1]
2. (historical) A foot soldier, an infantryman (infante).^[2][4]
3. (historical) A commoner, a man of the people.^[2][14]
4. (chess) A pawn, one of the eight least valuable pieces; also a piece in draughts (damas).^[2][15][1]
5. (figurative) A person of little importance who is easily manipulated.^[14]
6. (bullfighting) A torero who fights the bull on foot, and the peão de brega is an assistant who prepares the bull.^[2][16]
7. (Brazil) A breaker of horses and mules; a drover; a cowhand or ranch hand.^[2][4][13]
8. (Brazil) A farm labourer paid by the day; a labourer on roads, railways or building sites.^[2][17][1]
9. (nautical) An iron fitting on a mast into which the yard fits.^[18][12]

Related words

• pé
• pedestre
• Spanish peón
• French pion

Usage notes

In Brazilian rodeos the peão is the rider who mounts the bull.^[19] The feminine is peã, peoa or peona.^[14][1]

Houaiss also records a rare adjective and noun peão, a variant of péone, the metrical foot of classical verse, first listed in 1881.^[2]

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 g h i j k l m n o p q r s Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. peão
3. ^ a b c d Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. peão
4. ^ a b c d e f Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. peão
5. ^ a b c Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. peão
6. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. pion
7. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. pion
8. ^ a b c d 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. peon
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. peon
10. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 415
11. ^ 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, 713
12. ^ a b c 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. peão
13. ^ a b Schlee, Aldyr Garcia (2019), Dicionário da Cultura Pampeana Sul-Rio-Grandense, 2 vols., Pelotas: Fructos do Paiz, p. s.v. peão
14. ^ a b c Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 6991
15. ^ 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. peão
16. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. peão
17. ^ 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, p. s.v. peão
18. ^ 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. peão
19. ^ Wikcionário (Portuguese Wiktionary), pt.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. peão