sal

Forms

sal m (plural sais)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin sāl (“salt”), written Old Galician-Portuguese sal in the oldest texts.^[2][3][1] Old spellings include Old Galician-Portuguese sall (1391) and Old Galician-Portuguese ssal (1392).^[2] The word kept the masculine gender of Latin, as in Italian and French.^[2] Spanish made it feminine, as did Catalan, much of Occitan and northern Italy, perhaps through the neuter that some archaic and late Latin authors give it.^[2][4][5] Galician-Portuguese has the masculine from the cantigas of Alfonso X on.^[4]

The same Latin word is Galician sal, Spanish sal, Catalan sal, French sel, Italian sale and Romanian sare.^[5][1]

The Latin noun goes back to Proto-Italic *sāls, with a long vowel in the nominative and a short one in the other cases, which de Vaan traces to an ablauting Proto-Indo-European *sē̆h₂-l-s.^[6][1] Its cognates include Ancient Greek ἅλς (háls), Old Irish salann and Old English sealt, the ancestor of the English word salt.^[1][6] Houaiss also names *saltom, the source of the English word and of Salz.^[2] Bluteau in 1712 took the Portuguese word for the Greek word with its letters transposed.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

A Latin charter of 1008 already has et IIIIor modios de sal “and four measures of salt”.^[8][2] In Galician-Portuguese the word is recorded from the 13th century.^[3] The Cantigas de Santa Maria speak of eating field greens sen sal “without salt”, and use the simile of water dissolving salt, como desfaz agua sal, for something brought to nothing.^[8]

Semantic evolution

The Latin noun already had the figurative sense “wit”, and the plural meant “jokes”.^[9] Portuguese has the figurative sense too: a person or story sem sal is dull, and sal is the grace or piquant malice of what is said or written.^[2][10] The Ordenações Afonsinas regulate the buying of fruit, wine and salt in the Algarve.^[11]

Chemistry gave it the general sense of a compound formed from an acid and a base, which Houaiss puts first.^[2][12] By metonymy it can mean the water of the sea, and the plural sais means smelling salts, given to revive someone who has fainted, or bath salts.^[2][13] Feijó (1734) records the plural spelling saes.^[14] Set phrases include sal ático “Attic salt”, a refined and witty style, and sal-gema “rock salt”.^[2][15] The Gospel phrase o sal da terra “the salt of the earth” is the name Jesus gave the apostles.^[16]

Timeline

• 1008 – a Latin charter writes IIIIor modios de sal.^[8]
• 13th century – first records in Galician-Portuguese;^[3][8] sen sal in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[3][8]
• 1391 – the spelling sall;^[2] ssal in 1392.^[2]
• c. 1430 – first occurrence in the CTA corpus, in the Horto do Esposo (witness 1390–1437).^[17]
• 1562 – Cardoso's dictionary has Ho sal.^[18]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau describes natural and artificial salt.^[7]
• 1734 – Feijó gives the plural saes.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. salt, sodium chloride, used to season and preserve food: Põe uma pitada de sal na sopa.^[2][15][1]
2. (chemistry) A compound formed by the reaction of an acid with a base.^[2][10][1]
3. (by metonymy) The water of the sea.^[2][16]
4. (figurative) Grace, liveliness, charm: um filme sem sal.^[2][10][1]
5. (figurative) Witty malice; a piquant remark.^[2][15]
6. (in the plural, sais) Smelling salts; bath salts.^[2][13][1]

Word family

• salgar
• salgado
• salga
• saleiro
• sal-gema
• salgadeira
• salicultura

Related words

• assalariado
• assalariar
• dessalgar
• insosso
• insulso
• salário
• salada
• salina
• Latin sal

Usage notes

In the medieval cantigas sal is also a form of the verb sair “to go out”, as in Martim Padrozelos's vem, e sal-m'este coraçom.^[19][8] Viterbo records the same form in a document of 1292 with the sense “to leave this world, to die”.^[20] Wiktionary also has a rare noun sal for the sal tree, Shorea robusta.^[1]

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 k l m n o p q r Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. sal
3. ^ a b c d Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. sal
4. ^ a b Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 130
5. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 7521
6. ^ a b 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. sāl
7. ^ 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. sal
8. ^ a b c d e f 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. sal
9. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. sel
10. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. sal
11. ^ Vieira, Frei Domingos (1871–1874), Grande Diccionario Portuguez ou Thesouro da lingua portugueza, 5 vols., Porto: Ernesto Chardron e Bartholomeu H. de Moraes, p. 5, 381
12. ^ Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. sal
13. ^ 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. sal
14. ^ a b Feijó, João de Morais Madureira (1734), Orthographia, ou Arte de escrever, e pronunciar com acerto a lingua portugueza, Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. sal
15. ^ a b c Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. sal
16. ^ a b 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. sal
17. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. sal
18. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1562), Dictionarium juventuti studiosae admodum frugiferum, Coimbra: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. sal
19. ^ 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. sal
20. ^ Viterbo, Joaquim de Santa Rosa de (1798–1799), Elucidario das palavras, termos e frases que em Portugal antiguamente se usárão, 2 vols., Lisboa: Simão Thaddeo Ferreira, p. 2, 300