pulga

Forms

pulga f (plural pulgas, diminutive pulguinha)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote pulga and pulgua.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *pūlica, from pūlex (“flea”), written Old Galician-Portuguese pulga in the oldest texts.^[2][3][4][1] The same Latin word is Galician pulga, Spanish pulga, Catalan puça, French puce, Italian pulce and Romanian purice.^[5][1] Corominas assumes the form with -a in Vulgar Latin because the noun, masculine in Latin, became feminine in most Romance languages.^[6] Nascentes also notes the change of gender.^[7]

Wiktionary traces the Latin noun to *plus- (“flea”), with the consonants reordered and the suffix also seen in cīmex (“bug”) and culex (“gnat”).^[1] De Vaan gives the root with a query and compares ψύλλα (psúlla), प्लुषि (plúṣi), blusà and flōh, all “flea”.^[8][1] The DHLF notes that these names of the flea are alike but cannot all be traced to one original form.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss dates the word to the 14th century, and Cunha has the spelling pulgua from that century.^[2][3] Lorenzo found hũa pulga “a flea” in the Galician-Portuguese Soliloquios, a text without a date.^[10]

Semantic evolution

The derivative pulgão, the plant louse, is recorded as pulgon in the 14th century, and espulgar “to rid of fleas” in the 16th.^[3] Barbosa's dictionary of 1611 also has pulga as the name of a fish.^[11] Bluteau gives a long description of the insect and its bite.^[12]

The name spread to small leaping animals: the sand flea of beaches and river banks is recorded in the dictionaries and the dialect surveys.^[13][14] Brazilian slang uses it for a very small car.^[15][16]

Timeline

• 14th century – first records, also spelt pulgua.^[2][3] Pulgon “plant louse” appears too.^[2][3]
• 1569 – Cardoso renders pulga by Latin pulex.^[17]
• 1611 – Barbosa adds pulga as the name of a fish.^[11]
• 1789 – Morais defines it as a small insect living on the blood of dogs and people.^[18]
• 1858 – pulguedo “a swarm of fleas”.^[3]
• 1975 – Aurélio records the Brazilian slang sense “very small car”.^[19]

Meanings

Noun

1. flea: any of the small wingless leaping insects of the order Siphonaptera that feed on the blood of mammals and birds, especially the human flea, Pulex irritans.^[2][15][1]
2. A small leaping animal of the sand of beaches and rivers; a sand flea.^[13][20]
3. (Brazil, slang) A very small car.^[15][16]

Word family

• pulgão
• pulguedo
• espulgar
• pulguento

Related words

• Latin pūlex
• Galician pulga

Usage notes

Estar com a pulga atrás da orelha “to have the flea behind one's ear” means to be suspicious.^[2][21] Porto Editora also records estar em pulgas “to be restless, impatient” and num salto de pulga “in an instant”.^[21]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. pulga
3. ^ a b c d e f g Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. pulga
4. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. pulga
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
6. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 685
7. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 423
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. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. puce
10. ^ 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. pulga
11. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. pulga
12. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. pulga
13. ^ a b Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. pulga
14. ^ Instituto da Lingua Galega, Tesouro do léxico patrimonial galego e portugués (TLPGP), Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, https://ilg.usc.gal/tesouro, p. s.v. pulga
15. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. pulga
16. ^ 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. pulga
17. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. pulga
18. ^ 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, 263
19. ^ Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda (1975), Novo dicionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira, p. 1181
20. ^ 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. pulga
21. ^ a b Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 7595