sabor

Forms

sabor m (plural sabores)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin sapor (“taste, flavour”), written Old Galician-Portuguese sabor in the oldest texts.^[2][3][1] The Latin noun is formed from sapiō (“to taste; to be wise”) with the suffix -or.^[4][1]

The same Latin word is Galician sabor, Spanish sabor, Catalan sabor, Occitan sabor, Italian sapore and French saveur.^[5][1] The Latin verb goes back to Proto-Indo-European *seh₁p-; de Vaan reconstructs a present with the sense “to notice”.^[1][6] Portuguese saber comes from the same Latin verb.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss and Cunha date the word to the 13th century.^[2][3] In the cantigas it means “pleasure, delight, desire” rather than “taste”: aver sabor de is “to take pleasure in”, a vosso sabor “as you please”, and a troubadour sings tal sabor hei de a veer “such delight I have in seeing her”.^[8][9][10]

Semantic evolution

Universo Cantigas notes that in the troubadour lyric the senses “pleasure” and “desire” are hard to tell apart.^[10] The sense “taste” is the one the 16th-century dictionaries give, translating it by Latin sapor.^[11][12] Bluteau lists the nine flavours of the philosophers, three hot (acrid, bitter, salty), three cold (astringent, harsh, sour) and three temperate (oily, sweet, insipid).^[13] Morais keeps the older “pleasure” beside “taste”, with a teu sabor “as you like” from Sá de Miranda.^[14]

Later senses are “character, tone” (sabor clássico), “wit, grace” and, in particle physics, flavour, the quantum number of a quark.^[15][16][1]

Timeline

• 13th century – first records, mainly in the sense “pleasure”;^[17] saboroso and dessabor (later dissabor) also appear.^[2][3][17]
• 1416 – sabor in the Vida do Cativo Monge Confesso.^[18]
• 16th century – first record of saborear.^[19]
• 1569 – Cardoso's dictionary translates it by Latin sapor.^[11]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau describes the nine flavours.^[13]
• 1789 – Morais records a teu sabor “as you like”.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. The sensation that a substance produces on the organs of taste.^[2][20]
2. The property of a substance of producing that sensation; flavour: Este queijo tem um sabor forte.^[2][16][1]
3. The sense of taste.^[2][20]
4. An appealing quality, like a pleasant taste: o sabor da aventura.^[2][16]
5. (figurative) A distinctive character or tone: uma canção de sabor brasileiro.^[2][15][1]
6. (figurative) Kind, sort, genre.^[2][16]
7. Wit, charm, good humour.^[2][21]
8. Whim, will; in ao sabor de “at the mercy of, as … pleases”.^[16][22][23]
9. (particle physics) Flavour, the quantum number distinguishing types of quark.^[16][15][1]

Word family

• saborear
• dissabor

Related words

• saber
• saboroso
• Latin sapor
• Spanish sabor

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. sabor
3. ^ a b c Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. sabor
4. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. sapor
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 7590
6. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
7. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. saber
8. ^ 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. sabor
9. ^ Lopes, Graça Videira; Ferreira, Manuel Pedro et al. (2011–), Cantigas Medievais Galego-Portuguesas [online database], Lisboa: Instituto de Estudos Medievais, FCSH/NOVA, https://cantigas.fcsh.unl.pt, p. s.v. sabor
10. ^ a b 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. sabor
11. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. sabor
12. ^ Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. sabor
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. sabor
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, 363
15. ^ a b c 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. sabor
16. ^ a b c d e f Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. sabor
17. ^ a b Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. dissabor
18. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. sabor
19. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. saborear
20. ^ a b 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. sabor
21. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. sabor
22. ^ 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. sabor
23. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 8216