poço

Forms

poço m (plural poços, metaphonic)^[1] Medieval texts write poço and pooço.^[2] The plural poços has an open /ɔ/.^[1][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin puteus (“well, pit”), written Old Galician-Portuguese poço and Old Galician-Portuguese pooço in medieval texts.^[2][4][1]

The same Latin word is Galician pozo, Spanish pozo, Catalan pou, Occitan potz, French puits, Italian pozzo and Romanian puț.^[5][1] The feminine poça “puddle” is formed from it by changing the final vowel;^[6][5] Houaiss's first record of it is from 1134.^[6][5]

The origin of the Latin word is unclear: de Vaan notes that its short /u/ rules out a derivation from paviō (“to strike”), that a link with putō (“to prune”) is unattractive in meaning, and that it may well be a loanword.^[7] The DHLF takes the ending ⟨-eus⟩ as a hint of an Etruscan origin.^[8] Wiktionary mentions *paw- (“to strike”) as a possible root.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

A Latin charter of 937 has the Romance form pozo.^[2] In Galician-Portuguese the Cantigas de Santa Maria speak of un poço fond'e negro “a deep, black well”, and the Miragres de Santiago tell how devils threw a man en hũu poço “into a well”.^[9]

Semantic evolution

Latin puteus already covered a pit, a mine shaft, a grain store, a dungeon and the abyss of hell, and Portuguese kept the general sense of a deep hole in the ground.^[2] Bluteau (1712–1728) describes the well as a deep, stone-lined hole whose spring water does not flow, and which, though still, does not depend on rain from the roofs like a cistern.^[10] The Caldas Aulete adds the deepest point of a river, in Brazil also poção, and the shaft of a mine.^[3] Modern uses include oil wells, lift shafts and the orchestra pit, and figuratively a person full of something, as in poço de ciência.^[2][11][12]

Timeline

• 937 – pozo in a Latin charter.^[2]
• 13th century – un poço fond'e negro in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[9][2]
• 1390–1437 – the Horto do Esposo has poço, its first occurrence in the CTA corpus.^[13]
• 1569 – Cardoso's dictionary renders poço by Latin puteus.^[14]
• 1611 – Barbosa adds the Latin adjectives for “of a well”.^[15]
• 1720 – Bluteau records the derivative poceiro.^[16]

Meanings

Noun

1. A well, a deep hole dug in the ground to reach water: Tiravam água do poço com um balde.^[2][11][1]
2. A deep hole dug to extract something from the ground: poço de petróleo.^[2][17]
3. A cistern or hole that collects water.^[2][11]
4. The deepest part of a river or lake, pego.^[11][3]
5. A shaft, as of a mine or a lift.^[11][12]
6. Anything very deep; an abyss (abismo).^[11][18]
7. (figurative) A person with a great store of something: poço de ciência.^[12][3]

Word family

• poça
• poceiro

Related words

• Latin puteus
• Galician pozo

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. poço
3. ^ a b c d 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. poço
4. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. poço
5. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6877
6. ^ a b Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. poça
7. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. puits
9. ^ a b 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. poço
10. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. poço
11. ^ a b c d e f Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. poço
12. ^ a b c Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. poço
13. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. poço
14. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. poço
15. ^ Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. poço
16. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. poceiro
17. ^ 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. poço
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. poço