rumor

Forms

rumor m (plural rumores)^[1] A private letter of 1720 writes remor.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin rūmor (“noise; common talk, rumour”).^[3][4][5][1] Houaiss dates the word to the 14th century, citing Cunha's index of medieval Portuguese.^[3]

The same Latin word is Spanish rumor, Galician rumor, Catalan remor, French rumeur and Italian rumore; the Romance etymological dictionary lists it in every Romance language except Romanian.^[6][7]

De Vaan traces the Latin word to Proto-Italic *roumōs and, with a question mark, to a word for “roaring”, of the root of Sanskrit and Old Church Slavonic verbs for roaring and of Ancient Greek ὠρύομαι (ōrúomai, “to howl”).^[8] Wiktionary gives the root as Proto-Indo-European *h₃rewH- (“to shout, roar”).^[1] The DHLF calls the Latin noun the only clear representative of that root in Latin.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first records, of the 14th century, have the sense “fame, public report”; the sense “murmur, hubbub” follows in the 15th century.^[3] The Horto do Esposo, in a manuscript of 1390–1437, uses the word.^[10]

Semantic evolution

In Latin the word meant both the noise of many voices and the talk that goes round, and both senses passed to Portuguese.^[11][12][3] Cunha gives “the noise of things moving” as the main sense.^[4] Morais (1789) defines it as a din, a noise, and the fame that goes round, with an example from Camões's Lusíadas; his 1813 edition adds rumor do povo, the muffled voices of a crowd.^[13][14] Folqman (1755) already has the murmuring of a complaining or rioting people.^[15]

Modern dictionaries put the sense “unconfirmed report, piece of gossip” last and mark it as figurative, beside its synonym boato.^[16][17] In Portugal rumor de lua is a change of the moon's phase, believed to affect health, and in law rumor público is a vague public report that leads to suspicion of a crime.^[18][19]

Timeline

• 1300s – first records, with the sense “fame”.^[3][4]
• 1390–1437 – rumor in the Horto do Esposo.^[10]
• 1400s – the sense “murmur, hubbub”.^[3]
• 1569 – Cardoso's dictionary has the word, with Latin rumusculus.^[20]
• 1720 – the spelling remor in a private letter.^[2]
• 1789 – Morais defines it as din, noise and fame.^[13]
• 1858 – first record of rumorejar.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A noise or murmur made by things or people moving; a dull, confused sound: o rumor das folhas.^[3][21][1]
2. The indistinct sound of many voices; burburinho.^[3][17]
3. A general murmur of discontent or indignation.^[22][7]
4. (figurative) A rumour, an unconfirmed report that spreads by word of mouth; fame, reputation.^[16][17][1]
5. (Portugal, popular) A change of the moon's phase, thought to affect health: rumor de lua.^[18][19]

Word family

• rumorejar
• rumoroso

Related words

• boato
• Latin rūmor
• Spanish rumor

Usage notes

The vowel of the stressed syllable is closed, /ô/, in the singular and the plural rumores;^[17] Aurélio distinguishes rumores from the verb form of rumorar, with an open vowel.^[17] In Portugal leva rumor! is an exclamation that calls for silence or tells someone to go away.^[22][18]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b 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. rumor
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. rumor
4. ^ a b c d Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. rumor
5. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. rumor
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 7441
7. ^ a b Estraviz, Isaac Alonso, Dicionário Estraviz, https://estraviz.org, p. s.v. rumor
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. rūmor
9. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. rumeur
10. ^ a b Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. rumor
11. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. rūmor
12. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. rūmor
13. ^ 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, 361
14. ^ Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 649
15. ^ Folqman, Carlos (1755), Diccionario portuguez, e latino, Lisboa: Régia Officina Silviana (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. rumor
16. ^ a b Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 8204
17. ^ a b c d e Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. rumor
18. ^ 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. rumor
19. ^ a b 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. rumor
20. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. rumor
21. ^ 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. rumor
22. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. rumor