rosa

Forms

rosa f (plural rosas, diminutive rosinha or roseta or rosita)^[1] Houaiss records the old spellings rrosa (14th century) and rossa and roza (15th century) beside rosa.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin rosa (“rose”), written Old Galician-Portuguese rosa in the oldest texts.^[2][3][1] The same Latin word is Galician rosa, Spanish rosa, Catalan rosa, French rose and Italian rosa.^[4][5] Meyer-Lübke observes that almost everywhere the word leans on the bookish language of botanists and poets, and Corominas calls the Spanish word semi-learned: for all its popularity it does not show the diphthong a popular word would have, an influence he puts down to the litanies and pious works as much as to the botanists.^[4][6] Nascentes notes that the Latin word changed its long /o/ into a short one by analogy with the participle of rōdō (“to gnaw”).^[7]

The Latin word is akin to Ancient Greek ῥόδον (rhódon, “rose”).^[8][9] Wiktionary takes it from a variant of the Greek word, perhaps through another Italic language or from an Aeolic form of ῥοδέα (rhodéā, “rose-bush”), while the DHLF holds that neither word is Indo-European and that both were borrowed independently from a language of the East, the Greek one probably from Iranian, with the Latin /s/ perhaps pointing to a passage through Etruscan.^[1][10]

The senses for the colour are an ellipsis of cor-de-rosa, according to Wiktionary, while the DLP takes the colour noun and adjective from the French colour word.^[1][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the Cantigas de Santa Maria of the 13th century the Virgin is Rosa das rosas e Fror das frores “Rose of roses and Flower of flowers”, and another cantiga speaks of a garland made de rosas.^[12] The same collection already uses the word for a colour: A terçeyra (coor) chamam rosa, porque é coor vermella “the third colour they call rose, because it is a red colour”.^[12] Houaiss dates both the flower and the colour to the 13th century.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Besides the flower, Houaiss dates the sense “rosy patch on each cheek” to the 13th century.^[2] Barbosa in 1611 lists the word for the plant or its flower, and Bluteau in 1712 names the white, purple and red domestic roses and the white musk roses, Mosquetas or Damascenas.^[13][14] Things shaped like the open flower took the name: the rose window and ceiling ornament (rosácea), the sound hole of string instruments and the brass tool of bookbinders.^[2][15] The botanical genus Rosa comes into Houaiss's article through scientific Latin, in 1735.^[2]

In the plural the word means happiness, as in mar de rosas “a time when all goes well”.^[16] In Minas Gerais it is a taboo word for the anus.^[2][1] Some Portuguese dialects use rosa for any flower, as Galician also does, and in Vila Real it names a straight-edged hoe.^[17][18]

Timeline

• 1200s – the Cantigas de Santa Maria call the Virgin Rosa das rosas and use rosa for a red colour.^[12]
• 1300s – the spelling rrosa.^[2]
• c. 1430 – rosa in the Horto do Esposo (copied 1390–1437).^[19]
• 1569 – Cardoso glosses rosa with Latin rosa and rosula.^[20]
• 1611 – Barbosa lists the plant and the flower, with cor de rosa.^[13]
• 1712 – Bluteau derives the word from Greek rodon.^[14]
• 1735 – the botanical genus Rosa of scientific Latin.^[2]
• 1789 – Morais describes it as a common scented flower of several kinds.^[21]

Meanings

Noun

1. A rose, the flower of the roseira.^[2][22][1]
2. (botany) The rose bush; any shrub of the genus Rosa.^[2][11]
3. A rosy patch on the cheeks; a pink mark on the skin.^[2][15][1]
4. (architecture) A round ornament or window shaped like an open rose, a rosácea.^[2][15][1]
5. (bookbinding) A brass tool used to gild books.^[2][22][1]
6. (music) The round sound hole in the soundboard of plucked string instruments.^[2][16][1]
7. (figurative) A beautiful woman.^[2][23][1]
8. (in the plural) Happiness, good fortune: mar de rosas.^[2][16]
9. (Minas Gerais, vulgar) The anus.^[2][1]
10. pink, the pale red colour of some roses; cor-de-rosa.^[2][11][1]

Adjective

1. (invariable) Pink: duas camisas rosa.^[11][15][1]

Word family

• roseira
• roseta
• rosa-dos-ventos
• rosa-chá
• rosa-cruz
• cor-de-rosa

Related words

• rosácea
• rosáceo
• róseo
• rosado
• rosário

Usage notes

The proverb não há rosas sem espinhos “there are no roses without thorns” is among the phrases Wiktionary lists.^[1]

The colour adjective does not change for gender or number.^[15][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s 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. rosa
3. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. rosa
4. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 7375
5. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. rosa
6. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 49
7. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 448
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. rosa
9. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. rosa
10. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. rose
11. ^ a b c d 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. rosa
12. ^ 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. rosa
13. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. rosa
14. ^ 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. rosa
15. ^ a b c d e Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. rosa
16. ^ a b c Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 8174
17. ^ 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. rosa
18. ^ Estraviz, Isaac Alonso, Dicionário Estraviz, https://estraviz.org, p. s.v. rosa
19. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. rosa
20. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. rosa
21. ^ 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, 356
22. ^ a b Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. rosa
23. ^ 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. rosa