roxo

Forms

roxo (feminine roxa, masculine plural roxos, feminine plural roxas, diminutive roxinho)^[1] Houaiss records the spellings ròuxo in 1813 and roixo in 1836.^[2] Nascentes notes that roxo is the only form used in Brazil, while roixo is the usual one in Portugal.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin russeus (“dark red, reddish”), through an older form Old Galician-Portuguese roixo.^{[2][4][5][6][1]} Nascentes explains the loss of the ⟨i⟩ as the normal development of the diphthong /oi/ before a consonant, as in froxo and coxa.^[3] Adolfo Coelho had derived the word from rubeus, and Pacheco and Lameira took it for a doublet of russo.^[3]

The same Latin word is Galician roxo and Spanish rojo; it left descendants only in Portuguese, Spanish and the dialects of central and southern Italy.^[7][8] The Latin adjective is formed from russus (“red”), which gave Italian rosso, French roux and Catalan ros, while rouge and roig come from Coelho's adjective instead.^[7][9][3] That adjective goes back to *russos and ultimately to Proto-Indo-European *h₁rewdʰ- (“red”), the root of ruber too.^[1][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas finds roxo as a man's name or nickname in two Portuguese documents of about 1060 and of 1258.^[7] The first record of the adjective is a cantiga d'escarnho by Joan de Gaia, of about 1330, which mocks a nose of the colour of escarlata roxa, “deep red scarlet”: E meus narizes color d'escarlata roxa?^[7][11][12] The DDGM glosses the word there as “dark red”.^[11]

Semantic evolution

Until the 16th century the word meant “red”; then it took over the place of the old word for purple, morado, which survives in Spanish, while Spanish kept rojo for red.^[5] Corominas thinks that in the Middle Ages it named a reddish shade rather than the colour of blood, and notes that Camões's roxa Aurora still means red.^[7]

Bluteau defined roxo as the colour of common violets.^[13] Morais in 1789 gave both the violet colour and a bright red, quoting Camões's a roxa flama and o roxo sangue, as well as “ruddy, red-haired”.^[14] Silva Bastos recorded the noun as a vulgar name for red wine in 1912.^[15] Brazilian Portuguese gave the adjective a set of informal intensive senses: “excessive”, “eager for”, “mad about” and “very hard”.^[2][6] In São Paulo the noun also names a mixture of coffee and aguardente.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 1060 – Roxo appears as a man's name or nickname in a Portuguese document, and again in 1258.^[7]
• c. 1330 – Joan de Gaia's cantiga d'escarnho has escarlata roxa.^[7][11]
• 1572 – Camões uses roxo several times in Os Lusíadas.^[2][3]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau defines it as the colour of violets.^[13]
• 1789 – Morais gives the senses “violet” and “bright red”.^[14]
• 1813 – the spelling ròuxo;^[2] roixo follows in 1836.^[2]
• 1836 – first record of arroxeado.^[4]
• 1912 – Silva Bastos records the noun for red wine.^[15]

Meanings

Adjective

1. purple, violet: of the colour of the violet or the amethyst, between red and blue: uma camisa roxa.^{[2][6][16][1]}
2. Of the skin: bruised, black and blue from a blow: ficou com o braço roxo.^[2][16][1]
3. (obsolete) red.^[2][17][1]
4. (Brazil, informal) Intense, excessive, beyond measure: uma fome roxa.^[2][6]
5. (Brazil, informal) Very eager or anxious to do something: o miúdo anda roxo por ir à praia.^[2][6]
6. (Brazil, informal) Passionately keen on something or someone: é roxo por futebol.^[2][6]
7. (Brazil, informal) Very hard to do, arduous.^[2][6]
8. (figurative) Overcome with envy.^[1]

Noun

1. The colour purple.^{[2][6][16][1]}
2. (informal) A bruise.^[1]
3. (popular) red wine.^[16][17][15]
4. (São Paulo) Coffee mixed with aguardente.^[2]

Word family

• arroxeado
• roxo-terra
• terra roxa
• olho roxo
• couve-roxa

Related words

• Latin russeus
• Galician roxo
• Spanish rojo

Usage notes

Portuguese roxo “purple” and Spanish rojo “red” are false friends: Spanish kept the old sense and has morado for purple.^[5][7]

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 Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. roxo
3. ^ a b c d e Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 450
4. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. roxo
5. ^ a b c Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. roxo
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. roxo
7. ^ a b c d e f g h Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 49
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 7465
9. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. rojo
10. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. roux
11. ^ 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. roxo
12. ^ Universo Cantigas: Glosario da poesía medieval profana galego-portuguesa, A Coruña: Instituto da Lingua e Literatura (ILLA), Universidade da Coruña, https://www.universocantigas.gal, p. s.v. roxo
13. ^ 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. roxo
14. ^ 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, 359
15. ^ 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. roxo
16. ^ 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. roxo
17. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. roxo