polpa

Forms

polpa f (plural polpas)^[1] Houaiss records the Latinising spelling pulpa in 1858.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin pulpa (“flesh; pulp of fruit”), through Old Galician-Portuguese polpa, as Wiktionary has it.^[2][3][4][1] Houaiss and Cunha give no medieval record: their first dates are of the 16th century.^[2][3] The REW and García de Diego list the Portuguese and Galician word among the popular outcomes of the Latin, whereas Spanish pulpa is semi-learned.^[5][6][7]

The same Latin word is Galician polpa, Catalan polpa, Italian polpa, Old French polpe and Romanian pulpă.^[5][1]

De Vaan traces the Latin word to *pelpā (“meat”), since pelmner (“of meat”) in Umbrian shows an /e/ in the first syllable, and gives no older etymology;^[8][1] Wiktionary's Latin entry also calls the further origin uncertain, while its Portuguese entry names Proto-Indo-European *pel- (“flour, dust”).^[8][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss dates the word to 1563, in João de Barros, with the sense “meat without bone or fat”.^[2] Bluteau quotes Barros's third Década: Tinha mais polpa, do que hum touro tem de carne “he had more flesh than a bull has meat”.^[9]

Semantic evolution

From the lean flesh of an animal the word passed to the soft part of fruit, a sense Houaiss dates to 1661, and figuratively to “substance, importance”, from 1665.^[2] Bluteau (1712) has the meat sense, which he says common people call fevera, the pulp of figs and of cassia, the calf of the leg (polpa da perna) and “wealth, something of substance”.^[9] Later came the technical senses: the pulp of a tooth and the wet mass of paper-making.^[2][10] The phrase de polpa “of weight, important” is recorded by Aulete.^[11]

In southern Brazil it means a piece of fresh boneless beef, and in Piauí the topside of the leg of beef.^[12][13]

Timeline

• 1563 – first record, in João de Barros.^[2]
• 1661 – first record of the sense “soft part of a fruit”.^[2]
• 1665 – first record of the figurative sense “importance”.^[2]
• 1672 – a private letter has the word.^[14]
• 1712 – Bluteau lists the meat, fruit and figurative senses.^[9]
• 1813 – first record of the adjective polpudo.^[3]
• 1858 – the spelling pulpa.^[2]
• 1899 – first record of despolpar “to remove the pulp”.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. Lean flesh, meat without bone or fat.^[2][10]
2. The soft fleshy part of a fruit or root, pulp: a polpa da manga.^[2][15][1]
3. (anatomy) The dental pulp, the soft tissue inside a tooth.^[10][15]
4. The fleshy tip of the inner side of a finger.^[15]
5. A soft wet mass, paste, especially the mass from which paper is made.^[2][10]
6. (figurative) Substance, importance, weight: um escritor de polpa.^[2][10]

Word family

• despolpar
• polpudo

Related words

• Latin pulpa

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 k l m n Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. polpa
3. ^ a b c d Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. polpa
4. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. polpa
5. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6834
6. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. pulpa
7. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 688
8. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ a b c Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. polpa
10. ^ a b c d e Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. polpa
11. ^ 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. polpa
12. ^ Schlee, Aldyr Garcia (2019), Dicionário da Cultura Pampeana Sul-Rio-Grandense, 2 vols., Pelotas: Fructos do Paiz, p. s.v. polpa
13. ^ Navarro, Fred (2004), Dicionário do Nordeste, São Paulo: Estação Liberdade, p. s.v. polpa
14. ^ CLUL (ed.) (2014), P.S. Post Scriptum: Arquivo Digital de Escrita Quotidiana em Portugal e Espanha na Época Moderna, Lisboa: Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, http://ps.clul.ul.pt, p. s.v. polpa
15. ^ 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. polpa