rã

Forms

rã f (plural rãs, diminutive rãzinha, augmentative rãzona)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote rãa, plural rrããs and raas.^[2][3] Cardoso (1569) and Barbosa (1611) write raã, Bluteau rãa.^[4][5][6] Dialect forms are arrã and ran.^[1][7]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin rāna (“frog”), written Old Galician-Portuguese rãa in the oldest texts.^[2][3][1] The old two-syllable form, with a nasal first vowel, later contracted to the modern one-syllable form.^[2][3][1]

The same Latin word gave Galician ra, Spanish rana, Italian rana and Old French raine.^[8][9][1] García de Diego also cites an old Portuguese form arraa.^[9] Corominas notes that it was inherited by all the western Romance languages but soon went out of use in Catalan and Gallo-Romance.^[10]

De Vaan considers the Latin noun onomatopoeic, built on a sound ⟨rā⟩, and finds a link with a root Proto-Indo-European *reh₂- (“to roar”) possible only in theory.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantigas de Santa Maria tell of a deaf man healed so que ja oya o galo e a rãa “that he now heard the cock and the frog”.^[12] Houaiss and Cunha date rãa to the 13th century.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

Bluteau (1712–1728) treats the frog as an amphibious creature, and derives its name from a Hebrew word meaning “to cry out”, after its croaking.^[6] Barbosa (1611) already lists raã das moutas for a toad and cantar a raã “to croak”.^[5]

In Brazil the word names several native species: Rana palmipes, eaten and called rã-verdadeira, and frogs of the genus Leptodactylus.^[13][14] In Bahia it also means the tree frog or perereca.^[15] In the Alentejo it is a variety of melon, and Porto Editora records a machine for compacting soil.^[16][17] Cunha dates the learned derivatives from Latin: rânula (1813), ranino (1881), and ranário and ranicultura in the 20th century.^[3]

Timeline

• 13th century – rãa in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[12][3]
• 14th century – the plural rrããs.^[2]
• 1350 – the Trasladação de S. Nicolau (14th-century witness) uses the word.^[18]
• 15th century – the plural raas.^[2]
• 1569 – Cardoso heads it raã.^[4]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau heads it rãa and gives a Hebrew etymology.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. A frog: any of several smooth-skinned tailless amphibians living in or near water, especially of the family Ranidae.^[2][19][1]
2. (Brazil) Rana palmipes, an edible frog of tropical America; also frogs of the genus Leptodactylus.^[13][14]
3. (Bahia) A tree frog (perereca).^[15]
4. (cooking) A dish of frog meat.^[20]
5. (Alentejo) A variety of melon.^[16]
6. A machine for compacting soil.^[17]

Word family

• rãzinha
• rã-verdadeira

Related words

• Latin rāna
• Galician ra
• Spanish rana

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. rã
3. ^ a b c d e f Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. rã
4. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. raã
5. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. raã
6. ^ 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. rãa
7. ^ 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. rã
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 7038
9. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. rana
10. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 766
11. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
12. ^ a b 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. rãa
13. ^ a b Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. rã
14. ^ a b 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. rã
15. ^ a b Navarro, Fred (2004), Dicionário do Nordeste, São Paulo: Estação Liberdade, p. s.v. rã
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. rã
17. ^ a b Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 7705
18. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. rã
19. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. rã
20. ^ 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. rã