porto

Forms

porto m (plural portos, metaphonic)^[1] The plural portos is pronounced with an open /ɔ/.^[1][2] The older spelling pôrto is also recorded.^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin portus (“passage, entrance; harbour”), written Old Galician-Portuguese porto in the oldest texts.^[3][4][1][5]

The same Latin word is Galician porto, Spanish puerto, Catalan port, French port and Italian porto.^[6][1] Spanish and Portuguese also use the word for a mountain pass, a sense that Corominas traces in Spanish to a pre-Latin Indo-European form of the same root.^[7]

The Latin word goes back to *portus, from Proto-Indo-European *pértus (“crossing”), and its cognates include the English word ford and fjǫrðr (“fjord”); the Latin porta (“gate”) belongs to the same family.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss's first date, 919, comes from a Latin charter.^[3] In the 13th century the Cantigas de Santa Maria already use the word figuratively of the Virgin, tu que es porto u arriban os coytados “you who are the harbour where the troubled come to land”, and literally of o porto das aguas mui fondas “the harbour of very deep waters”;^[8] prender porto meant “to put into port”.^[8] A cantiga d'escarnho has porto for a place where a river is crossed.^[9]

Semantic evolution

Viterbo notes the many places named Porto and Portela from the 10th century, where the word meant a gate, a gorge or a passage over land.^[10] Morais gives first “a place that gives passage over land”, with portagem, the toll collected at such passes, and only then the harbour.^[11] These land senses are archaic now, and the harbour, a port city and a place of refuge are the current ones.^[3][12] In Portugal the word also names a gap in the fence of a property, and in Trás-os-Montes a narrow crossing of a stream.^[13][14] The city of Porto gave its name to the fortified wine, and porto alone means port wine from Figueiredo's dictionary of 1899.^[3][15]

Timeline

• 919 – porto in a Latin charter.^[3]
• 13th century – porto and prender porto in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[8][4]
• 14th century – the Trasladação de S. Nicolau uses the word.^[16]
• 1697 – Pereira gives porto with the Latin portus.^[17]
• 1755 – Folqman gives the city as O Porto, Latin Portus calensis.^[18]
• 1798–1799 – Viterbo explains porto and portela in place names as “passage”.^[10]
• 1899 – Figueiredo's dictionary records porto “port wine”.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. (archaic) A passage over land; an entrance.^[3][12]
2. (archaic) A pass between mountains.^[3][12]
3. (archaic) A gap in a wood through which game passes and where hunters lie in wait.^[3][12]
4. (nautical) A sheltered stretch of sea, river or lake near the shore where vessels can anchor; a harbour.^[3][15][1]
5. A port: a harbour with facilities for loading and unloading passengers and goods.^[3][15]
6. A town or city with a port: Santos é um porto importante.^[3][12][1]
7. (figurative) A place of rest and safety; a haven, refuge.^[3][19][1]
8. (Portugal, regional) An opening in the fence of a property.^[13][2]
9. Port wine; short for vinho do Porto.^[3][15][1]

Word family

• portuário

Related words

• aportar
• portuoso
• porta
• Latin portus
• Galician porto
• Spanish puerto

Usage notes

Fixed phrases include porto franco “free port”, where no customs duties are paid, and chegar a bom porto “to bring something to a happy end”.^[3][19] The city of Porto, in northern Portugal, takes its name from the same noun, through the Latin Portus Cale.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b 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. porto
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. porto
4. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. porto
5. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 411
6. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. portus
7. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 682
8. ^ a b c 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. porto
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. porto
10. ^ a b Viterbo, Joaquim de Santa Rosa de (1798–1799), Elucidario das palavras, termos e frases que em Portugal antiguamente se usárão, 2 vols., Lisboa: Simão Thaddeo Ferreira, p. 2, 232
11. ^ Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 475
12. ^ a b c d e Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. porto
13. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. porto
14. ^ Wikcionário (Portuguese Wiktionary), pt.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. porto
15. ^ a b c d 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. porto
16. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. porto
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. porto
18. ^ Folqman, Carlos (1755), Diccionario portuguez, e latino, Lisboa: Régia Officina Silviana (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. porto
19. ^ a b Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 7361