servo

Forms

servo m (plural servos, feminine serva, feminine plural servas)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin servus (“slave”), recorded from the 13th century.^[2][3][4][1] Houaiss follows Machado in taking the word to be learned in origin: the Latin word was very common in the barbarous Latin of the charters, so the Portuguese word probably came in through the language of the law.^[2] The REW lists it with the popular outcomes of the Latin word, beside Italian servo, French serf, Spanish siervo and Aromanian serb.^[5] The Spanish word is recorded from Berceo and a charter of 1219, and a Leonese document of 963 already writes ⟨servo⟩.^[6] The Galician form is servo too.^[7]

The Latin word goes back to *serwos, which de Vaan, following Rix, takes to have meant “guard, shepherd” before it came to mean “slave” in Italy between about 700 and 450 BC; he derives it from a *ser-u-o- (“guardian”) and relates it to servō (“to watch over”).^[8][1] The OLD calls the origin doubtful, perhaps Etruscan.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantigas de Santa Maria use the word for the servants of the Virgin, que seus servos defende “who defends her servants”, and for a man as un seu servo “a servant of his”.^[10] Machado dates the word to 1284.^[10] A cantiga tells a daughter that she is of such a lineage that one devia vosso servo seer “ought to be your servant”.^[11]

Semantic evolution

Barbosa (1611) gives servo as a synonym of escravo, and Bluteau treats it as “servant, attendant”.^[12][13] Morais (1789) lists the servant and the slave, the polite sou seu servo “I am your servant”, the legal servo da pena, a man sentenced to death and so deprived of his civil rights, and the papal title Servo dos servos do Senhor.^[14] That title translates the Medieval Latin servus servorum Dei, used by bishops.^[15]

Aurélio and the DLP define the historical sense “serf”, a man bound to the land of a feudal lord without being a slave.^[16][17] Figuratively a servo is someone who has given up his own will, a slave of a vice or of duty.^[2][16] The word is also an adjective, “not free; serving”.^[2][17]

Timeline

• 13th century – first record, in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[2][3][10]
• 1284 – Machado's date for the word.^[10]
• 15th century – the spelling sseruo.^[2]
• 1611 – Barbosa's dictionary translates it with Latin servus and mancipium.^[12]
• 1789 – Morais records servo da pena and the papal Servo dos servos do Senhor.^[14]
• 20th century – the technical clipping servo “servomotor”.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A person who is not free and has no rights or property of his own; a slave.^[2][16]
2. A servant, one who serves or obeys another: servo de Deus.^[2][18][1]
3. (history) A serf, a man bound to the land and dependent on a feudal lord, though not a slave.^[2][16][1]
4. (figurative) Someone who has given up his own will: servo da ambição.^[2][16]

Adjective

1. Not free; subject to a power or a master.^[2][17]
2. Serving others; serviçal.^[2][16]

Related words

• servir
• serviço
• serviçal
• servente
• servil
• servidão
• Latin servus
• Spanish siervo

Usage notes

Houaiss and Aurélio also record a separate technical noun servo, the 20th-century clipping of servomotor or servomecanismo, compare English servo (1947) and the French element servo-.^[2][16] Aulete notes cervo “deer” as a near-homophone.^[19]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. servo
3. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. servo
4. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. servo
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 7876
6. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 243
7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. servus
8. ^ 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. servus
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. seruus
10. ^ 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. servo
11. ^ 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. servo
12. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. servo
13. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. servo
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, 398
15. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. servus
16. ^ a b c d e f g Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. servo
17. ^ 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. servo
18. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 8451
19. ^ 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. servo