sábio

Forms

sábio (feminine sábia, masculine plural sábios, feminine plural sábias)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote sabyo, sabio, sabeo, saybho and saibo.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin sapidus (“tasty, savoury”), written Old Galician-Portuguese sabio in the oldest texts.^[2][4][1] In Late Latin the adjective already meant “wise, prudent”, which is the sense the Romance word continues.^[2][5][6][7] The Latin word is formed from sapiō (“to taste of; to be wise”) with the suffix -idus.^[8][1] Wiktionary takes the verb back to Proto-Indo-European *sap- (“to try, to research”).^[1]

The same Latin word is Spanish sabio and Catalan savi, and in the sense “tasty” it lives on in Old French sade;^[9] Meyer-Lübke explains French sage as a later book-word.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss dates the word to the 13th century, in the plural sabyos, and notes that the date is for the noun “one who knows much”.^[2] Lorenzo's chronology quotes the Crónica Geral (era muy sabio, o que disso o sabio) and the Crónica Troiana, where a woman is moy sabea et moy dereyteya “very wise and very upright”.^[3]

Semantic evolution

In the medieval chronicles the word is used of kings, sages and learned men, and also of skill in a field, as in the 1344 chronicle's muy saibho enna lingua d'aravigo “very learned in the Arabic language”.^[3] Bluteau (1712–1728) glosses it as “prudent” and tells of the Seven Sages of Greece (os Sabios de Grecia).^[10] Morais (1813) gives both the learned and the moral sense, “who knows the good from the bad and follows the good”.^[11] The old Caldas Aulete adds the familiar sense of trained animals (burro sábio).^[12] In Trás-os-Montes and other parts of northern Portugal sábio is a sorcerer, as sábias are witches in Galician.^[13][14]

Timeline

• 1200s – first record, in the plural sabyos.^[2]
• 1300s – sabio, sabea and saybho.^[2]
• 1344 – the chronicle of 1344 writes saybho and saibho.^[3]
• 1513 – sabio in the Livro dos Mártires.^[15]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau glosses it as “prudent”.^[10]
• 1813 – Morais defines both the learned and the moral sense.^[11]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Who knows a great deal; learned, erudite.^[2][6][1]
2. Who has deep knowledge of a particular field: um sábio botânico.^[2][6]
3. Who acts and speaks with good sense and prudence; wise, sensible.^[2][14][1]
4. Showing or containing much learning or skill: uma decisão sábia.^[2][6]
5. (informal) Of an animal: trained to do tricks.^[2][16]

Noun

1. A scholar or savant, a person of great learning.^[2][14]
2. A sage, a person distinguished by knowledge, experience of the world and an exemplary life.^[2][1]
3. (northern Portugal) A sorcerer.^[14][13]

Word family

• sabichão

Related words

• saber
• sapiente
• sabedoria

Usage notes

Aurélio gives sapientíssimo as the learned superlative and sabichão as a pejorative augmentative.^[6]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. sábio
3. ^ 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. sabio
4. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. sábio
5. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. sábio
6. ^ a b c d e Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. sábio
7. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. sapidus
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ 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. sábio
11. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 651
12. ^ 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. sábio
13. ^ a b Instituto da Lingua Galega, Tesouro do léxico patrimonial galego e portugués (TLPGP), Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, https://ilg.usc.gal/tesouro, p. s.v. sábio
14. ^ 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. sábio
15. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. sabio
16. ^ 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. sábio