queda

Forms

queda f (plural quedas)^[1] The medieval language wrote caeda and queeda before the contracted queda.^[2][3] Until the 19th century the word was often written with an accent, quéda, as in Barbosa's dictionary of 1611.^[4]

Etymology

It goes back to the medieval Old Galician-Portuguese caeda, the feminine past participle of Old Galician-Portuguese caer, the old form of cair “to fall”, used as a noun.^[2][5][6][7] Wiktionary and the Porto Editora dictionary carry the participle further back as inherited from Vulgar Latin *cadeta (“a falling, drop”), from *cadescō, a Vulgar Latin extension of Latin cadō (“to fall”).^[8][1] Michaelis gives the Vulgar Latin form as *cadita, and Cornu had already derived the word from such a form through the medieval forms.^[9][10] Nascentes describes the modern form as a contraction through the intermediate Old Galician-Portuguese queeda, and Gonçalves Viana compared Spanish caída and the Portuguese recaída and descaída, which keep the uncontracted vowels.^[6][10]

The Latin verb continues Proto-Italic *kadō, from Proto-Indo-European *ḱad- (“to fall”).^[11][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The oldest record is caeda in the Cantigas de Santa Maria (cantiga 141), in the line Oy mais aguardade / est'outro de caeda fazer escarnida.^[3][7] The Miragres de Santiago use it of a man who got up unhurt after a fall (aa caeda que caeu, ergeuse sen ferida).^[3] In these texts the word means a bodily fall.^[3]

Semantic evolution

By the 16th century the word had the figurative sense “ruin”: Cardoso (1569) and Pereira (1697) render it by Latin ruina, and Barbosa (1611) by ruina and casus.^[12][13][4] Morais (1789) adds the slope of a hill, decline or ruin, and the phrase ter queda para “to have a bent for” (poetry, painting), the sense of natural inclination still current; his 1813 edition adds the fall of a river, a waterfall.^[14][15]

The moral sense “sin, fall from grace” and the political sense, the fall of a ruler or a government, are given by the old Caldas Aulete.^[16] Modern dictionaries add a fall in quantity or value (prices, temperature, production), the loss of hair or leaves, and in Brazil the slope of a terrain, the way a fabric hangs and the depreciation of a currency.^[2][9] In the Azores queda is the heel of a shoe.^[2][16][1] Brazilian Portuguese has the informal duro na queda “hard to bring down, stubborn”, and in the colloquial language ter uma queda por alguém is to have a crush on someone.^[2][16][1]

Timeline

• 1200s – caeda in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[3][7]
• 1300s – Houaiss records the form queedas.^[2]
• 1344 – the Crónica de 1344 has both queeda and queda in the account of a fall from a horse.^[3]
• c. 1430 – queda in the Horto do Esposo (witness copied 1390–1437).^[17]
• 1400s – Houaiss and Cunha date the form queda to the 15th century.^[2][7]
• 1569 – Cardoso glosses queda with Latin ruina.^[12]
• 1611 – Barbosa lists queda, ou caída and the phrase dar quéda “to fall”.^[4]
• 1789 – Morais records ter queda para “to have a knack for”.^[14]
• 1813 – Morais adds the sense “waterfall”.^[15]

Meanings

Noun

1. A fall, the act of falling; a tumble: Deu uma queda na rua molhada.^[2][5][1]
2. A waterfall, water falling from a height (also queda-d'água).^[2][9]
3. A drop or decrease in level, value or intensity: uma queda das vendas.^[16][9][8]
4. decline, ruin; the collapse of a state or institution.^[2][5][8]
5. The loss of power or office; the overthrow of a ruler or government.^[2][5][18]
6. Loss of credit or prestige; discredit.^[2][5]
7. (religion) A moral fall; sin, error.^[2][5][18]
8. A natural bent or knack for something: Ela tem queda para a pintura.^[2][5][19]
9. (informal) A crush, an infatuation (with por): Ele tem uma queda pela vizinha.^[1]
10. (Brazil) A slope of ground; the way a fabric or garment hangs.^[2]
11. (Azores) The heel of a shoe.^[2][1]
12. (phonetics) The loss of one or more sounds of a word.^[2]

Word family

• quedinha

Related words

• cair
• caído
• caída
• recaída
• descaída
• Latin cadō

Usage notes

Common phrases are queda livre “free fall”, dar uma queda or levar uma queda “to fall”, and the Brazilian duro na queda “tough, not easily beaten”.^[2][16] Houaiss also has the informal além de queda, coice for two misfortunes in a row.^[2]

The spelling queda is also the feminine of the adjective quedo “still” and a form of the verb quedar, both pronounced with closed /e/; the noun has open /ɛ/.^[5][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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 Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. queda
3. ^ a b c d e f 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. caeda
4. ^ a b c Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. queda
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. queda
6. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. queda
7. ^ a b c d Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. cair
8. ^ a b c Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 7645
9. ^ a b c d 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. queda
10. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 426
11. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. cadō
12. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. queda
13. ^ 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. queda
14. ^ 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, 274
15. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 538
16. ^ a b c d e 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. queda
17. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. queda
18. ^ 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. queda
19. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. queda