ramo

Forms

ramo m (plural ramos)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin rāmus (“branch, bough”), written Old Galician-Portuguese ramo in the oldest texts.^[2][3][4][1] The Latin word was in use at every period and survives in all the Romance languages.^[5]

The same Latin word is Galician ramo, Spanish ramo, Catalan ram, Occitan ram, Italian ramo, Romanian ram and Old French raim, while the modern French rameau comes from a diminutive.^[5][6][1] A collective *rama, formed after the model of folia, gave rama “the branches of a plant”, a word shared with Galician and Spanish.^[5][7]

De Vaan and the OLD trace the Latin word to *wrādmos, from the root of rādīx (“root”); de Vaan accepts the link only as possible, while Wiktionary takes it back to Proto-Indo-European *wréh₂ds (“root”).^[8][9][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantigas de Santa Maria of the 13th century have the word for the branches of trees: a lion comes running de so ũus ramos “from under some branches”, and a saint is given un ramo de palma “a palm branch” as a sign.^[10] In the cantigas d'amigo the birds sing of love pelos rramos d'arredor “in the branches round about”, and Johan Zorro's girl asks to rest de so lo ramo “beneath the bough”.^[10]

Semantic evolution

The figurative use is old: a cantiga d'escarnho of Johan Soarez Coelho calls a man who steals his friend's song ramo de deslealdade “a branch of disloyalty”, a turn of phrase shared with Italian, French and Occitan that grew out of the medieval allegory of sins and virtues as the branches of a tree.^[10] Houaiss dates the general sense “part of a whole, division” to the 14th century.^[2] The sense “line of descent, branch of a family” and, later, “field of knowledge or trade” followed the image of the family tree.^[2][11]

In Portugal a bunch of bay or pine hung at a door was the sign of a tavern, and ramo came to mean the tavern itself: Morais (1813) records ir ao ramo “to go to the tavern”.^[11][12] The derivative rameira “prostitute” goes back to the women of the 15th century who frequented such taverns.^[13][3] The sense “bunch of flowers” and the blessed palm of Palm Sunday, Domingo de Ramos, are recorded by the modern dictionaries.^[2][14][1] In Brazil, and in Rio Grande do Sul in particular, a ramo is also a sudden attack of illness, as in ramo de ar, a paralysis blamed on a draught.^[15][2]

Timeline

• 13th century – first records in the Cantigas de Santa Maria and the cantigas d'amigo.^[2][3][10]
• 14th century – first record of the sense “part, division”.^[2]
• 1431 – ramo in the Vida do Infante Josafat (witness 1431–1446).^[16]
• 1481 – first record of rameira, named after the tavern branch.^[13]
• 1569 – Cardoso's dictionary renders ramo by Latin ramus.^[17]
• 1611 – Barbosa records the saying não põe pé em ramo verde.^[18]
• 1813 – Morais records the tavern sign of bay and the phrase ir ao ramo.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. A branch or bough of a tree or plant, growing from the trunk or stem: O pássaro pousou num ramo da figueira.^[2][14][1]
2. A bunch of flowers or leaves, a bouquet (ramalhete): um ramo de cravos.^[2][14][1]
3. The blessed palm or olive branch given to the faithful on Palm Sunday.^[2][12]
4. A line of a family descending from a common stock; descent: Ela pertence ao ramo materno da família.^[2][14]
5. A part or division of something that branches, such as an arm of a river.^[2][19]
6. A field of knowledge or a sector of trade or industry: Trabalha no ramo da construção.^[2][12][1]
7. (anatomy) A division of an artery, vein or nerve, or a thinner extension of a bone.^[2][20]
8. (linguistics) A subgroup of a language family, such as the Romance branch of Indo-European.^[2]
9. (architecture) An ornament shaped like a branch.^[2][21]
10. A lot of goods sold together at auction.^[2][19]
11. A sudden attack of illness, a fit.^[2][15]

Word family

• rama
• ramada
• ramagem
• ramalho
• ramalhar
• ramalhete
• rameira
• enramar
• ramificar
• ramificação

Related words

• derramar
• ramal
• ramoso
• Latin rāmus
• Galician ramo

Usage notes

The saying não pôr pé em ramo verde, which Barbosa (1611) renders by a Latin phrase meaning “to have nowhere to set one's foot”, is old.^[18]

Houaiss also records an archaic adjective and noun ramo “of the Rami, a people near the Caucasus”, from the Latin plural Rami, first recorded in 1881.^[2]

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. ramo
3. ^ a b c Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. rami
4. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. ramo
5. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 7035
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. 433
7. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. rama
8. ^ 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. rāmus
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. rāmus
10. ^ a b c d 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. ramo
11. ^ a b c Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 549
12. ^ a b c 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. ramo
13. ^ a b Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. rameira
14. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. ramo
15. ^ a b Schlee, Aldyr Garcia (2019), Dicionário da Cultura Pampeana Sul-Rio-Grandense, 2 vols., Pelotas: Fructos do Paiz, p. s.v. ramo
16. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. ramo
17. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. ramo
18. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. ramo
19. ^ a b Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 7755
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. ramo
21. ^ 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. ramo