pedra

Forms

pedra f (plural pedras)^[1] Houaiss records pedra and the elided pedr' in the 13th century.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin petra (“rock, crag, stone”), written Old Galician-Portuguese pedra in the oldest texts.^[2][3][1] The Latin word is from Ancient Greek πέτρα (pétra, “rock”).^[4][1]

The same Latin word is Galician pedra, Spanish piedra, Catalan pedra, Occitan peira, French pierre, Italian pietra and Romanian piatră.^[5][1] Nascentes notes that it displaced lapis in spoken Latin.^[4] Corominas adds that the Greek loan appears in the earliest Latin writers and took root early in the spoken language, though classical authors avoided it in favour of saxum.^[6] The origin of the Greek word is unknown;^[1] Wiktionary notes that Beekes prefers a Pre-Greek borrowing.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Latin charters of the Portuguese territory have the Romance plural in place names: 1069 subtus mons pedras rrubias “below the hill of red stones”, and 1080 pedras mouiles.^[7] In Galician-Portuguese the word is recorded from the 13th century.^[2][3] The Cantigas de Santa Maria already use it for a stone thrown at someone (foi-lles log'hũa pedra lançar), for building stone (boveda de pedra “a stone vault”), for precious stones, for hail and for a stone in the bladder (a door que chaman da pedra “the pain they call the stone”).^[7]

Semantic evolution

Most of the modern senses are thus medieval: the material, the single stone, the gem, the hailstone and the stone in the body.^[7][2] The Crónica Troiana speaks of workmen quarrying moytas pedras.^[7] Barbosa (1611) gives chuva de pedras for hail and a proverb on the stone and the word that cannot be called back once thrown.^[8] Morais (1789) adds cabeça de pedra e cal for a stubborn person.^[9]

Later senses include the writing slate of the schoolroom and then the blackboard, a piece of a board game, a lump of any hard substance, and, figuratively, a dull or unfeeling person.^[2][10] In Brazil it is also a beer mug, a small pressed block of marijuana or crack, and in Bahia a large diamond or the winning number of the jogo do bicho.^[2][11] The word lives on in Guinea-Bissau Creole pedra and Kabuverdianu pédra.^[1]

Timeline

• 1069 – a Latin charter names a hill pedras rrubias.^[7]
• 13th century – first Galician-Portuguese records; the Cantigas de Santa Maria use the word for building stone, gems, hail and the bladder stone.^[2][3][7]
• 14th century – the Trasladação de S. Nicolau is the first text of the CTA corpus to use the word.^[12]
• 1569 – Cardoso's dictionary renders pedra by Latin lapis and saxum.^[13]
• 1611 – Barbosa lists chuva de pedras “hail”.^[8]
• 1712 – Bluteau defines the word and lists the kinds of building stone.^[14]
• 1789 – Morais records the stone formed in the kidneys or bladder and cabeça de pedra e cal.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. stone, the hard solid mineral matter of which rocks are made: uma parede de pedra.^[2][15][1]
2. A piece of this matter, of any size; a pebble or boulder.^[2][10][1]
3. A rocky hill or crag.^[2][15]
4. A gravestone.^[2][16]
5. A precious or imitation stone used in jewellery.^[2][15]
6. A writing slate; by extension, a blackboard.^[2][16]
7. A lump of a hard substance: duas pedras de gelo no copo.^[2][17]
8. A hailstone; hail.^[10][16][1]
9. (medicine) A calculus in the kidneys, bladder or another organ;^[17][16][1] (dentistry) tartar.^[17][16][1]
10. A hard mass in the flesh of some fruits.^[2][10]
11. A piece in a board game, such as draughts.^[2][10]
12. (figurative) Something hard and unfeeling; a stupid person.^[2][10]
13. (Brazil, slang) A small block of pressed marijuana or crack cocaine.^[2][1]
14. (Bahia) A large diamond; the winning number in the jogo do bicho.^[2][11]

Word family

• pedrada
• pedregulho
• pedreira
• pedreiro
• pedrinha
• pedroso

Related words

• pétreo
• Latin petra
• Galician pedra
• Spanish piedra

Usage notes

Barbosa's dictionary of 1611 records the proverb a pedra e a palavra não se recolhe depois de lançada, that a stone and a word cannot be taken back once thrown.^[8] Wiktionary lists the idiom tirar leite de pedra “to draw milk from a stone”, to achieve the near impossible.^[1]

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 o p q r s Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. pedra
3. ^ a b c Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. pedra
4. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. pedra
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. petra
6. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 534
7. ^ 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. pedra
8. ^ a b c Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. pedra
9. ^ 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, 175
10. ^ a b c d e f Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. pedra
11. ^ a b Navarro, Fred (2004), Dicionário do Nordeste, São Paulo: Estação Liberdade, p. s.v. pedra
12. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. pedra
13. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. pedra
14. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. pedra
15. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. pedra
16. ^ a b c d e Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 7008
17. ^ a b c 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. pedra