povo

Forms

povo m (plural povos, metaphonic)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote poboo, poblo and pobro in the 13th century and pouoo (povoo) in the 14th;^[2][3][4] povo is recorded from the 15th century.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin populus (“people, nation”).^[2][3][5][1] Houaiss traces it through Old Galician-Portuguese poblo, poboo and povoo, and the 13th century also has pobro.^[2][3] Wiktionary notes that the form with /b/ between two vowels displaced the collateral form with /bl/.^[1] Nascentes describes the Latin /p/ between vowels softening to /b/ and that /b/ later becoming /v/.^[6]

The same Latin word is Galician pobo, Spanish pueblo, Catalan poble, French peuple, Italian popolo and Romanian popor.^[7][1] In Spanish and Portuguese the word also came to mean a village.^[7]

The Latin noun, earlier poplus, goes back to Proto-Italic *poplos, which de Vaan and Wiktionary gloss as “army”; its further origin is unknown, and Wiktionary mentions an Etruscan source as a possibility.^[8][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantigas de Santa Maria of the second half of the 13th century speak of poboos mỹudos “common people” and of un gran poboo de mouros “a great host of Moors”.^[4] In the Crónica Troiana the word means the inhabitants of a city (todo o poboo da çidade), and in the Miragres de Santiago the people of a country, gathered to listen to the apostles.^[4]

Semantic evolution

Already in the medieval texts the word covered a whole nation, the inhabitants of a town and the gathered crowd;^[4][2] Houaiss dates the sense “crowd, throng” to the 14th century.^[4][2] Bluteau defined it as the dwellers of a city, town or village, and Morais in 1789 added povo miúdo “the common people, the rabble” and the figurative use of an opinion that is “of the people”, common and uncritical.^[9][10]

In rural Portugal, Brazil and the River Plate the word also names a small settlement, a hamlet; in Trás-os-Montes it can be the village square.^[2][1][11] Brazilian informal speech uses it for “the folks, the gang”: o povo já chegou.^[2] The word passed into Kabuverdianu as povu and into Makalero.^[1]

Timeline

• 13th century, second half – poboo in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[4]
• 14th century – the spelling pouoo and the sense “crowd”.^[2]
• 15th century – first record of the form povo.^[2]
• 1542 – povo in a private letter.^[12]
• 1611 – Barbosa gives povo pequeno and povo de gente bayxa “the common people”.^[13]
• 1789 – Morais records povo miúdo “the rabble” and the figurative sense “vulgar, common”.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. A people, a nation: a body of people who share a language, customs, history and traditions.^{[2][14][15][1]}
2. The inhabitants of a country, region or town.^[2][14]
3. The citizens of a country as against those who govern them.^[2][15]
4. The common people, the lower classes; the populace.^[2][14]
5. A crowd, a throng;^[2][14] (figurative) a great number of things.^[2][14]
6. A small settlement, a hamlet.^[2][1][11]
7. (informal) One's family or folks;^[2] (Brazil) the gang, everybody.^[2]
8. (plural) The nations; humankind.^[2]

Word family

• povoar
• povoado
• povoação
• despovoar
• despovoação

Related words

• população
• popular
• póvoa
• populacho
• Latin populus
• Galician pobo
• Spanish pueblo

Usage notes

The proverb voz do povo, voz de Deus “the voice of the people is the voice of God” is quoted in the original Caldas Aulete.^[16] In northern Portugal the word is pronounced /ˈpo.bu/, with /b/ for /v/.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m 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 t Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. povo
3. ^ a b c d Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. povo
4. ^ a b c d e f g 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. poboo
5. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. povo
6. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 412
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6654
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. povo
10. ^ 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, 225
11. ^ a b Schlee, Aldyr Garcia (2019), Dicionário da Cultura Pampeana Sul-Rio-Grandense, 2 vols., Pelotas: Fructos do Paiz, p. s.v. povo
12. ^ 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. povo
13. ^ Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. povo
14. ^ a b c d e Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. povo
15. ^ a b 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. povo
16. ^ 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. povo