rua

Forms

rua f (plural ruas)^[1]

Etymology

According to Houaiss it is inherited from Vulgar Latin *ruga (“path; street lined with houses”), the Latin noun for “wrinkle, crease”, which took the sense “path” in Vulgar Latin and then “street”; he allows that French rue, recorded in 1080 in this sense, may have had some influence.^[2][1] Cunha too speaks of a probable French influence.^[3] Others take the word itself from French: Nascentes, who explains the loss of the /g/ by the French route, the DLP, and Meyer-Lübke, who lists the Portuguese and the Spanish word as loans from French.^[4][5][6] The same word existed in Old Spanish, Old Spanish rua (1129).^[2]

Galician has rúa.^[1] The sense “wrinkle” lives on in Spanish arruga and in the learned ruga.^[6][1]

De Vaan reconstructs *rougā, from Proto-Indo-European *h₁roug-h₂- (“wrinkle”), and finds no direct link with runcō.^[7] Wiktionary compares Latin rupta via (“path made by force”) for the development from “furrow” to “street”.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The word appears first in Latin charters: one of 1149 has in illa Rua noua “in the New Street”, and the inquiries of 1220 in Rua de Amaranti.^[8] In the Galician-Portuguese poems of the 13th century it is the street of a town: the Cantigas de Santa Maria say that no street, lane or road of the town was left unsearched, and Airas Nunez has a man left naked no meio da rua “in the middle of the street”.^[8][3]

Semantic evolution

Morais (1789) adds the walks between rows of trees or beds in a garden, and a line of people standing in parallel rows.^[9] The word came to mean the houses and the people of a street, and any public place outside home and work.^[2][10] Brazil added the town centre with its shops, as opposed to the countryside, and the path between the rows of a plantation.^[2][10] As an interjection, rua! sends someone away roughly.^[2][5]

Timeline

• 1149 – in illa Rua noua in a Latin charter.^[8]
• 13th century – rua in the Cantigas de Santa Maria and the satirical cantigas.^[8][3]
• 14th century – the spelling rruas.^[2]
• 1513 – first record in the CTA corpus, in the Livro dos Mártires.^[11]
• 1569 – Cardoso renders Rua with Latin via and vicus.^[12]
• 1789 – Morais adds the garden walk and a row of people.^[9]
• 1836 – first record of the diminutive ruela.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A street, a public way in a town lined with houses, buildings or walls.^[2][10][1]
2. The roadway, the middle of the street where vehicles pass, as against the calçada.^[2]
3. The houses of a street; the people who live in them.^[2][10]
4. Any public place outside one's home or work: passou o dia na rua.^[2][10]
5. (Brazil) The seat of a municipality or district, with its shops, as against the countryside.^[2][10]
6. (Brazil) The space between the rows of a plantation.^[2][10]
7. (figurative) The poorest class of society, the rabble.^[2][13]
8. (printing) A canal, a line of spaces running down a page.^[2][10]

Interjection

1. Out!, a rough order to leave.^[2][13]

Word family

• ruela
• arruar
• arruamento
• arruaça
• arruaceiro

Related words

• ruga
• Latin rūga
• French rue
• Galician rúa

Usage notes

Pôr na rua means “to dismiss from a job” or “to throw out of a house”, and rua da amargura is the way of Christ to Calvary and hence great distress.^[2][5]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. rua
3. ^ a b c d Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. rua
4. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. rua
5. ^ a b c 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. rua
6. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 7426
7. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ a b c d 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. rua
9. ^ 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
10. ^ a b c d e f g h Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. rua
11. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. rua
12. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. rua
13. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. rua