rede

Forms

rede f (plural redes)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote both rede and rrede.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin rēte (“net”), written Old Galician-Portuguese rede and Old Galician-Portuguese rrede in the oldest texts.^[2][3][1] The Latin word was a neuter, but popular Latin already had a form in -is, mostly feminine, which explains the feminine gender of the Portuguese and Spanish nouns.^[5][4]

The same Latin word is Galician rede, Spanish red, Catalan ret, French rets and Italian rete.^[6][7][1] The French word was feminine at first, like the Latin rētis, and became masculine from the 16th century.^[8]

The Latin word goes back to Proto-Italic *rēti-, whose further origin is uncertain.^[9][1] De Vaan suggests that the original noun may have been masculine, with a neuter plural rētia, the neuter singular being formed later from the plural.^[9] A link with Lithuanian rėtis (“sieve”) has been proposed, and so has a borrowing from a Semitic word such as Biblical Hebrew רֶשֶׁת (rešet, “net”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first dated record is a charter of 1286 on the catch of the sea, “all the fish they take in the sea, with boats as with lines, with nets (com rredes) or in any other way”.^[4] The Cantigas de Santa Maria tell of fishermen who “cast their nets” (deytaron sas redes) and drew in more fish than they could haul.^[4] In all these records the word means a fishing net.^[4]

Semantic evolution

In the medieval texts the net is above all the fisherman's: documents of 1358 and 1394 speak of dyeing nets and casting them to fish, and the Miragres de Santiago tell how the apostle left his boat and nets on the Sea of Galilee.^[4] Barbosa (1611) and Bluteau (1712–1728) list nets for hunting and fishing, and Bluteau also describes the rede of cotton in which the natives of Brazil and the West Indies sleep, hung between two trees, and the litter in which porters in India carry people.^[10][11] The hammock is still a Brazilian sense of the word, and in the north-east the same hammock is used to carry people, living or dead.^[2]

The figurative sense “trap, snare” is in Morais's dictionary of 1789, together with a mesh cap for the hair.^[12] Houaiss dates the hair-net to before 1845.^[2] From the sense of crossing threads the word came to mean any system of crossing lines: roads, pipes, canals or wires, as Silva Bastos already recorded in 1912, then a group of people or establishments in contact, a group of broadcasting stations, and in computing a set of connected computers and the Internet itself.^[13][2][1]

Timeline

• 1286 – com rredes in a charter on fishing.^[4]
• 13th century, second half – the Cantigas de Santa Maria have redes for fishing nets.^[4]
• 1364 – trasmalhos de Redes in an inventory.^[4]
• 1416 – the Vida de Santo Aleixo Confessor uses the word.^[14]
• 1569 – Cardoso's dictionary translates rede as Latin rete.^[15]
• 1611 – Barbosa lists the hunting net and the fishing net.^[10]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau describes the cotton hammock of the natives of Brazil.^[11]
• 1789 – Morais records the sense “snare, trick” and the hair-net.^[12]
• 1912 – Silva Bastos records the sense “network of roads or pipes”.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. A mesh of threads, cords or wires crossed and knotted at regular intervals, forming an open fabric.^[2][16]
2. A net made of such mesh for catching fish, birds or insects.^[2][17][1]
3. A strong net that catches people falling or jumping, used in circuses and by firemen.^[2][16]
4. (sports) The net stretched across a tennis or volleyball court, or the netting behind a goal.^[2][1]
5. A fine hairnet.^[2][1]
6. (Brazil) A hammock; in the north-east also a hammock used to carry people.^[2][1]
7. (Portugal) A wire screen against insects, or a sieve.^[2]
8. A network of roads, pipes, canals or wires; any set of points connected with one another.^[2][1]
9. A group of people or businesses working together or under one management, such as a chain of shops or a ring of spies.^[2][1]
10. (figurative) A trap or trick to catch someone.^[2][16][1]
11. (anatomy) An interlacing of vessels, fibres or nerves.^[2]
12. (computing) A system of connected computers;^[2][1] the Internet.^[2][1]
13. (broadcasting) A group of affiliated stations sharing programmes.^[2][1]

Word family

• enredar
• enredo
• desenredar
• enredadeira
• redinha
• redenho
• rede social
• rede de pesca

Related words

• redil
• retículo
• reticulado
• retina
• Latin rete
• Galician rede
• Spanish red

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t 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. rede
3. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. rede
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. rede
5. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 831
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. s.v. rede
7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. rete
8. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. rets
9. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. rede
11. ^ a b Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. rede
12. ^ 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, 302
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. rede
14. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. rede
15. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. rede
16. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. rede
17. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. rede