semente

Forms

semente f (plural sementes)^[1] Medieval texts also write seemete and ssemente.^[2] A dialect form simente is recorded in Portugal.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin sēmentis (“sowing; seed”), Old Galician-Portuguese semente in the oldest texts.^[2][4][5][1] The same Latin word is Galician semente, Spanish simiente, Catalan sement, Occitan semen and Italian semente.^[6][7]

The Latin word meant first the sowing of seed and the crop.^[8] It belongs to serō (“to sow”), beside sēmen (“seed”), from Proto-Indo-European *seh₁- (“to sow”) and *séh₁mn̥ (“seed”).^[9][1] The same root is in 𐍃𐌰𐌹𐌰𐌽 (saian, “to sow”) and sėti (“to sow”).^[9][1] Wiktionary suggests that the Latin noun was reshaped from an older *sēmentum.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

A charter of 1261 speaks of seu gáádo et sua semente “his cattle and his seed”, and one of 1276 of sua semente; the sense is seed corn for sowing.^[5] Cunha and Houaiss date the word to the 13th century.^[4][2]

Semantic evolution

The Crónica Geral of 1344 already has the seed as a cost of farming, a custa da semente et do lauor “the cost of the seed and the labour”, and the Miragres de Santiago use it for lineage, a semẽte de Dauid “the seed of David”.^[5] Bluteau in 1712 defines the seed of a plant and lists the four “hot” and the four “cold” seeds of the apothecaries.^[10] Morais adds the semen of animals, and carneiro de semente, a ram kept to breed.^[11]

The figurative sense “germ, cause, origin” and the Brazilian sense of pieces of sugar cane or manioc stem planted in furrows are recorded by the old Aulete.^[12] In Trás-os-Montes it is a graft scion.^[13]

Timeline

• 1261 – sua semente in a charter.^[5]
• 1276 – sua semente in another charter.^[5]
• 1344 – a custa da semente in the Crónica Geral.^[5]
• c. 1440 – semente in the Dez Mandamentos da Ley de Moisés.^[14]
• 1697 – Pereira glosses it with Latin semen.^[15]
• 1712 – Bluteau lists the four hot and the four cold seeds.^[10]
• 1789 – Morais records carneiro de semente.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. (botany) A seed, the part of a plant that develops from the fertilised ovule and holds the embryo: sementes de abóbora.^[2][16][1]
2. Any grain or matter sown in the ground to grow.^[17][13]
3. (figurative) germ, cause, origin: a semente da discórdia.^[16][18][1]
4. semen.^[16][19]
5. (Brazil) A piece of sugar-cane or cassava stem cut for planting.^[13][12]
6. (Portugal, Trás-os-Montes) A graft scion.^[13]
7. (Internet) A seeder in file sharing.^[1]

Related words

• semear
• sementeira
• semilha
• sêmen
• Galician semente
• Spanish simiente

Usage notes

Ficar para semente means to live a very long time, or to be left unused.^[18][19] A survey of 1940 in Portugal recorded semente also as an adjective meaning “similar, such”.^[3]

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 Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. semente
3. ^ 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. semente
4. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. semear
5. ^ 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. semente
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 7805
7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. sementis
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. sēmentis
9. ^ 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. serō
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. semente
11. ^ 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, 388
12. ^ 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. semente
13. ^ a b c d Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. semente
14. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. semente
15. ^ 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. semente
16. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. semente
17. ^ 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. semente
18. ^ a b Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 8385
19. ^ 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. semente