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sapato

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Etymology and origin of the Portuguese word sapato

Confidence
Unknown
First attested
1200s spelt çapato More words from the 13th century

Pronunciation

  • Brazil: /saˈpa.tu/[1]
  • Portugal: /sɐˈpa.tu/[1]

Forms

sapato m (plural sapatos)[1] The old spelling was çapato, which the DDGM follows into the 16th century, after which Portuguese writes sapato.[2][3] Cardoso (1569), Barbosa (1611) and Pereira (1697) head the word Çapato.[4][5][6] Bluteau gives both sapato and çapato, and Figueiredo (1899) still calls çapato as good as or better than sapato.[7][8]

Etymology

It is of obscure origin, written Old Galician-Portuguese çapato in the oldest texts.[3][9][10][2] Houaiss puts it with Spanish zapato, Catalan sabata, Occitan sabata, French savate and Italian ciabatta, whose origin is just as obscure.[3] Wiktionary adds Galician zapato and Basque zapata, and takes the Portuguese word from çapato.[1]

Corominas finds the oldest records of the word family in Christian Spain, where Latin texts have an augmentative of it from the 10th century, and in Muslim al-Andalus, whose colloquial Arabic had a like word for a shoe from the 11th century.[11][12] A similar word exists in the northern Slavic languages, in northern Turkic and in Persian, but Corominas doubts any etymological link with the western words; no proposed etymon convinces him, and the DDGM notes that he does not rule out an imitative origin.[12][11][2]

Cunha suggests, hesitantly, Turkish čabata, a Turkic source that Meyer-Lübke also accepted.[9][13][2] Wiktionary's article on the French word names Tatar чабата (çabata, “overshoes”).[1] The DLP derives the word from Turkish, and the Porto dictionary from colloquial Arabic through Spanish.[14][15] Bluteau took it from Arabic, and Morais (1813) from French.[7][16] Nascentes lists many more proposals, among them Latin, Greek, Arabic and Basque sources.[17]

Earliest recorded meaning

Latin charters from Portugal already have the Romance word: unos zapatos in 1103 and zapatos zebrunos et bezerrunos in 1145.[2] In Galician-Portuguese a cantiga by Fernan Rodriguez Redondo says of a man that he is always seen in a çapato dourado “gilded shoe”, and the Crónica Geral of 1344 tells of a priest who threw the money he was given into his çapato.[2][18] From the first records the word means a shoe.[2]

Semantic evolution

Barbosa (1611) lists çapato picado and çapato golpeado, shoes slashed for show, and çapatos de malhoo, heavy shoes against mud.[5][19] Morais (1789) records pós de sapato, a black powder made from the soot of oil or grease, and the jogo do sapato, a game in which a shoe is passed under the players while one of them hunts for it and is struck with it on the back.[20] Fixed phrases include esperar por sapatos de defunto “to wait for something uncertain or long in coming” and saber onde aperta o sapato “to know where the shoe pinches”.[3][21] In Portuguese dialects sapato also names parts of the flail and of the plough.[22]

The word was carried abroad by the Portuguese: Malay sepatu, Indonesian sepatu, Tetum sapatu, Lingala sapáto, Chichewa nsapato and Tupi sapatu.[1]

Timeline

  • 1103 – unos zapatos in a Latin charter.[2]
  • 1145 – zapatos zebrunos et bezerrunos in a Latin text of the Portugaliae Monumenta Historica.[2]
  • 1200s – first record of the Portuguese word, spelt çapato.[3][9]
  • 1344 – çapato in the Crónica Geral.[2]
  • 1348 – viinte par de çapatos for pilgrims to Santiago in a Galician charter.[2]
  • 1400s – Houaiss's first record of the spelling sapato.[3]
  • 1569 – Cardoso's dictionary heads the word çapato.[4]
  • 1570 – capatos in a private letter.[23]
  • 1611 – Barbosa lists çapato picado and çapatos de malhoo.[5]
  • 1712–1728 – Bluteau heads the word sapato, ou çapato.[7]
  • 1789 – Morais records the jogo do sapato and pós de sapato.[20]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A shoe: footwear, usually with a hard sole, that covers the foot but not the ankle: Comprei uns sapatos castanhos para o casamento.[3][14][24][1]
  2. A children's game in which a shoe is passed secretly among the players while one of them searches for it.[14][21][25]
  3. (Portugal, popular) A boorish, dull-witted person.[15]

Word family

  • sapata
  • sapataria
  • sapateado
  • sapateador
  • sapatear
  • sapateiro
  • sapatilha
  • Spanish zapato
  • French savate

Usage notes

Sapato de quarto is the European Portuguese term for a slipper (chinelo).[3][21] In Galicia the word is zapato, but sapato in the areas with seseo.[2]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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. çapato
  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. sapato
  4. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. çapato
  5. ^ a b c Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. çapato
  6. ^ Pereira, Bento (1697), Thesouro da lingoa portuguesa, in the 1697 edition of his Prosodia (1st ed. 1647; CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. çapato
  7. ^ a b c Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. sapato
  8. ^ Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. 246
  9. ^ a b c Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. sapato
  10. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. sapato
  11. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. zapato
  12. ^ a b Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 6, 832
  13. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
  14. ^ 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. sapato
  15. ^ a b Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 8301
  16. ^ Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 668
  17. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 457
  18. ^ 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. çapato
  19. ^ 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, 409
  20. ^ 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, 376
  21. ^ 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. sapato
  22. ^ 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. sapato
  23. ^ 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. sapato
  24. ^ Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. sapato
  25. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. sapato
Cite this entry

“Sapato.” Etymologically, 15 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/pt/sapato. Accessed 16 Nov. 2026.

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