raça

Forms

raça f (plural raças)^[1] A private letter of 1602 spells it rasa.^[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Italian razza, an Italian word of the 15th century for a group of animals or plants of one species with constant inherited features.^[3][4][5][1] The DELI dates the Italian word before 1446, and Wiktionary dates the masculine razzo to about 1300.^[6][1]

The origin of the Italian word was long debated.^[3] It was traditionally derived either from Latin generātiō (“begetting, generation”) with loss of the first syllable, the view of the REW, or from ratiō (“reckoning; nature, kind”), the view of the FEW and Spitzer.^[3][7][1] In the 20th century a derivation from Old French haraz, French haras (“stud farm”), was proposed.^[3] Nocentini considers the question settled by Contini: the first Italian records, which include the variant arazzo, follow French models and always concern horses and the stud they come from, so the word is the Old French term for horse-breeding, probably of Norse origin, which came to mean a breed of horses and then any kind or descent.^[8]

From Italian come French race and Spanish raza, and directly or indirectly English race and German Rasse.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Lorenzo's chronology has the first record in a Galician document of 1473, which speaks of women not newly converted nor infected da mala raça de mouros ou judios “with the bad race of Moors or Jews”.^[9] Houaiss takes his date from the same record.^[3] The first dated prose example in the CTA is the Vida de Santo Elói of 1491.^[10] In these texts the word means lineage or descent, with a pejorative tone.^[9]

Semantic evolution

Pereira (1697) equates it with casta.^[11] Bluteau (1712) uses it for breeds of animals, horses and dogs, and notes that of human lineages it is always taken in a bad sense: ter raça by itself meant to have Moorish or Jewish blood, and a confraternity's statutes required that its servants should not ter raça.^[12] Morais (1789) repeats both uses.^[13] Bluteau derived it from Latin radix “root”, and Vieira (1871–1874) from French race.^[12][14]

The modern sense of a division of humankind by inherited physical features is first recorded in a scientific bulletin of 1827, and in Italian in 1866.^[15][6] Houaiss and Aulete note that the notion is now rejected as a way of classifying human groups.^[3][16] The word also came to mean a class of people with the same trade or the same habits, often in a bad sense.^[3][16] In Brazilian informal speech it means fighting spirit, determination, courage, as in na raça.^[3][16][17] Houaiss and the DLP also record the sense “the smallest amount, a trace”.^[3][18]

Timeline

• 1473 – da mala raça de mouros ou judios in a Galician document.^[9]
• 1491 – raça in the Vida de Santo Elói.^[10]
• 1602 – the spelling rasa in a private letter.^[2]
• 1697 – Pereira glosses it as casta, Latin genus.^[11]
• 1712 – Bluteau records ter raça “to have Moorish or Jewish blood”.^[12]
• 1789 – Morais has cão, cavallo de boa, ou de má raça.^[13]
• 1827 – raças in a natural-science bulletin.^[15]
• 1871–1874 – Vieira derives the word from French.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. A traditional and arbitrary division of humankind by inherited physical features such as skin colour and hair type; a race.^[3][5][18]
2. A subdivision of an animal species whose features are kept through the generations; a breed: um cão de raça.^[3][19][1]
3. (biology) A population of a species living in a particular region and differing from others; a subspecies.^[3]
4. An ethnic group; a people in relation to its nation or region.^[3][18]
5. The ancestors of a family or person; lineage, descent, estirpe.^[3][20]
6. A group of people of the same profession or with the same qualities, often in a bad sense.^[3][16][18]
7. Distinction, noble origin: um cavalo de raça.^[3][20]
8. (Brazil, informal) Fighting spirit, determination, courage: O time virou o jogo na raça.^[3][16]
9. The smallest amount; a trace.^[3][18][19]

Word family

• racial
• racismo
• racista
• raçudo

Related words

• Italian razza
• Spanish raza
• French race

Usage notes

Houaiss records two other nouns spelt raça.^[3] One, regional in Portugal, means a beam of light entering through a crack (a raça de sol), and he reports it as an alteration of réstia; the DLP derives it from reça, from Latin restis “rope”.^[3][18][19] The other, recorded before 1635, is a crack in a horse's hoof, an alteration of racha;^{[3][4][5][12]} Bluteau already lists it as a farriers' term.^{[3][4][5][12]}

The phrase de raça is said of an animal of good stock, and in Brazil ter raça means to be of African descent.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b 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. raça
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. raça
4. ^ a b c Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. raça
5. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. raça
6. ^ a b Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli, p. s.v. razza
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 3732
8. ^ a b Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier, p. s.v. razza
9. ^ 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. raça
10. ^ a b Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. raça
11. ^ a b 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. raça
12. ^ a b c d e Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. raça
13. ^ 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, 280
14. ^ a b Vieira, Frei Domingos (1871–1874), Grande Diccionario Portuguez ou Thesouro da lingua portugueza, 5 vols., Porto: Ernesto Chardron e Bartholomeu H. de Moraes, p. 5, 64
15. ^ a b NEHiLP – Núcleo de Apoio à Pesquisa em Etimologia e História da Língua Portuguesa, Universidade de São Paulo, DELPo: Dicionário Etimológico da Língua Portuguesa (online database), p. s.v. raça
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. raça
17. ^ Schlee, Aldyr Garcia (2019), Dicionário da Cultura Pampeana Sul-Rio-Grandense, 2 vols., Pelotas: Fructos do Paiz, p. s.v. raça
18. ^ a b c d e f 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. raça
19. ^ a b c Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. raça
20. ^ 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. raça