rouco

Forms

rouco (feminine rouca, masculine plural roucos, feminine plural roucas)^[1] The 13th-century texts write rrouco.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin raucus (“hoarse”), written Old Galician-Portuguese rouco in the oldest texts.^[3][2][5][1] The Latin diphthong /au/ became /ou/, and Nascentes notes that the diphthong kept the /k/ after it from being voiced.^[6] Houaiss's first date, 1162, is taken from Machado.^[3]

The same Latin word is Galician rouco, Italian roco, Old Occitan rauc and Old French rou.^[7][6][1] In Spanish ronco and Catalan ronc it was crossed with the family of rhonchō (“to snore”).^[7][6][8]

In Latin the adjective is formed from rāvis (“hoarseness”) with the suffix -cus.^[9][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

A miracle of the Cantigas de Santa Maria has non era rrouco de cantar “he was not hoarse from singing”.^[4] Cunha dates both rouco and rrouco to the 13th century.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The word has kept its sense; from the voice it passed to deep and hollow sounds of any kind.^[3] Cardoso's dictionary of 1569 renders it with Latin raucus, and Bluteau (1712) explains Virgil's line about the shepherd Moeris struck dumb by wolves: it was believed that whoever a wolf saw first lost his voice.^[10][11] Feijó (1734) corrects the spelling roico to rouco.^[12] From the 13th century on the word has had derivatives, enrouquecer first, then rouquenho in the 16th century and rouquidão in 1813.^[2]

Timeline

• 1162 – Houaiss's first date, from Machado.^[3]
• 13th century – rrouco in the Cantigas de Santa Maria; first record of enrouquecer.^[4][2]
• 1545 – rouquo in a private letter.^[13]
• 1569 – Cardoso renders it with Latin raucus.^[10]
• 1734 – Feijó corrects roico to rouco.^[12]
• 1813 – first record of rouquidão and roufenho.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. hoarse, husky: said of a voice that is rough and hard to understand.^[3][14][1]
2. Having a hoarse voice, from a cold or from shouting: ficou rouco depois do jogo.^[3][15][1]
3. Deep, hollow and harsh in sound: o som rouco dos trovões.^[3][16][1]

Word family

• enrouquecer
• rouquidão
• rouquenho

Related words

• Galician rouco
• Spanish ronco
• Latin raucus

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. rouco
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. rouco
4. ^ 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. rouco
5. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. rouco
6. ^ a b c 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. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 7093
8. ^ Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. ronco
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. rouco
11. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. rouco
12. ^ a b Feijó, João de Morais Madureira (1734), Orthographia, ou Arte de escrever, e pronunciar com acerto a lingua portugueza, Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. rouco
13. ^ 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. rouco
14. ^ 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. rouco
15. ^ 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. rouco
16. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. rouco