rosto

Forms

rosto m (plural rostos)^[1] The medieval texts have both rostro (also rrostro) and rosto.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin rōstrum (“beak, snout”), through the medieval form Old Galician-Portuguese rostro, which lost its second /r/ by dissimilation and became Old Galician-Portuguese rosto.^[5][4][6][1] The learned rostro, “beak; rostrum”, is a doublet taken from the same Latin word.^[7][1]

The Latin noun meant a bird's beak or an animal's snout, and also a ship's ram, the point of a ploughshare and the nozzle of a lamp.^[5] Corominas notes that it was used of people only by the most colloquial writers, such as Plautus and Petronius, as a jibe, much as one might say “snout”; the word then went from “mouth” to “face”.^[8] Nascentes adds that it displaced Latin vultus (“face”).^[9]

The same Latin word is Galician rosto, Spanish rostro and Catalan rostre.^[10][11] The Latin word is formed from rōdō (“to gnaw”) with the instrumental suffix -trum, so that it meant first “the thing one gnaws with”.^[8][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

A legal text of 1209 printed among the Portugaliae Monumenta Historica lists de ollo, de narizes, de rostro, de mano, de pe “of eye, of nose, of face, of hand, of foot”.^[2] The Cantigas de Santa Maria use rostro and rosto for a person's face (o rostr' e a garganta ll'enchara “his face and throat had swollen”).^[2][3] A cantiga d'escarnho by Fernand' Esquio still has the older sense, the muzzle of an animal.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Lorenzo shows the word moving from “mouth, lip” to “face” early in the Galician-Portuguese texts.^[2] From “face” came “expression, look” and “courage to face something”, and the front of a building.^[5][12] In printing, rosto is the title page of a book, short for folha de rosto or página de rosto; in numismatics it is the reverse of a medal.^[5][13]

Several phrases go back to the early dictionaries: Barbosa in 1611 has fazer bom rosto “to put a good face on it” and dar em rosto “to reproach”.^[14] Silva Bastos records rosto as slang for “blood”.^[13]

Timeline

• 1209 – de rostro in a legal text in the Portugaliae Monumenta Historica.^[2]
• 13th century – rostro and rosto in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[2][5][4]
• 14th century – rrostro in the Galician Miragres de Santiago;^[2][4] Cunha dates the derivative rostada “slap” to the same century.^[2][4]
• c. 1430 – first occurrence in the CTA corpus, in the Horto do Esposo.^[15]
• 1569 – Cardoso glosses rosto with Latin facies.^[16]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau notes that the Latin word properly means a bird's beak but is taken for a person's face.^[17]

Meanings

Noun

1. The face, the front part of the head.^[5][18][1]
2. (figurative) The expression of the face; countenance: Tinha um rosto cansado.^[5][18]
3. (figurative) The courage to face a difficult situation.^[5][18]
4. The front of something, as seen by an observer: o rosto da casa.^[5][12]
5. (printing) The title page of a book; short for folha de rosto or página de rosto.^[5][13]
6. (numismatics) The reverse of a medal.^[5]

Word family

• arrostar

Related words

• rostro
• rostral
• rostrado
• Latin rōstrum

Usage notes

Common phrases include lançar em rosto or deitar em rosto “to reproach someone with something”, fazer rosto a “to stand up to” and torcer o rosto “to turn one's nose up”.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. rostro
3. ^ 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. rosto
4. ^ a b c d e Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. rosto
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. rosto
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. 449
7. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. rostro
8. ^ a b Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 75
9. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. rosto
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 7386
11. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. rostrum
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, 357
13. ^ a b c Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. rosto
14. ^ Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. rosto
15. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. rosto
16. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. rosto
17. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. rosto
18. ^ a b c 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. rosto