sestro

Forms

sestro (feminine sestra, masculine plural sestros, feminine plural sestras, not comparable)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote seestro, sẽestro and siestro;^[2][3] sestros is recorded in the 15th century, and seextro and soestro in the 18th.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin sinister (“left”), written Old Galician-Portuguese seestro in the oldest texts.^[2][4][1] Lorenzo and Wiktionary trace it to a Vulgar Latin form sinextrum, which took its ⟨x⟩ from dexter (“right”).^[3][1] Corominas explains the Spanish word in the same way.^[5] It is a doublet of the learned sinistro.^[2][1]

The same Latin word is Spanish siniestro.^[5][1] De Vaan tentatively derives the Latin word from Proto-Indo-European *senh₂-is- (“more obtaining”).^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

A charter of 1267 has de mão sẽestra “on the left hand”.^[3] In the 13th-century cantigas seestro means “left”, and also “ill-omened”: Johan Airas writes of men who look for a crow on the left when they set out, queren corvo seestro.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The pairing of left and right runs through the medieval texts, as in a destro et a seestro “to the right and to the left”.^[3] Nascentes quotes the Leal Conselheiro: Nom saiba a tua seestra o que faz a tua deestra “let your left hand not know what your right hand does”.^[7]

As an adjective the word became archaic, and it lived on as a noun.^[4] Houaiss dates the noun's sense “habit, tic, quirk” to 1562–1575, and Morais quotes Paiva for it: de todos os sestros, que hũ Príncipe toma se faz honra.^[2][8] Nascentes explains the shift by the old view that left-handedness was against nature.^[4] The noun also took the senses “destiny, fate”, “a trait proper to someone” and “a dodge to avoid work”, and the old dictionaries add the vices of a horse and “bad advice”.^[2][9][10]

Timeline

• 1267 – de mão sẽestra in a charter.^[3]
• 1200s – seestro “left; ill-omened” in the cantigas.^[2][3]
• c. 1430 – the Horto do Esposo has seestro.^[11]
• 1400s – the contracted form sestros.^[2]
• 1562 – first date of the sense “habit, tic”, between 1562 and 1575.^[2]
• 1720 – first record of sestroso.^[12]
• 1813 – Morais records the adjective in the senses “left” and “sinister”.^[13]

Meanings

Adjective

1. (archaic) On the left side; esquerdo.^[2][10][1]
2. (archaic, figurative) ominous, ill-fated; sinistro, agourento.^[2][10][1]

Noun

1. A habit, tic or quirk that a person repeats without thinking; a cacoete.^[2][10][1]
2. destiny, fate, lot: foi o seu sestro.^[2][14][1]
3. A trait peculiar to someone or something.^[2][10]
4. A dodge to avoid work; the manha of a horse.^[2][10][15]
5. Bad advice.^[2][10]

Word family

• sestroso

Related words

• sinistro
• Latin sinister
• Spanish siniestro

Usage notes

A separate noun sestro, with closed /e/, is a variant of sistro “sistrum”, first recorded in 1553.^[2][14] Bluteau describes it as a brass instrument like a tambourine played at the folk dances of Lisbon.^[16]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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 Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. sestro
3. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. seestro
4. ^ a b c Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. sestro
5. ^ a b Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 257
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. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. s.v. sestro
8. ^ 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
9. ^ 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, 514
10. ^ a b c d e f g 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. sestro
11. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. seestro
12. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. sestroso
13. ^ Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 696
14. ^ a b Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. sestro
15. ^ 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. sestro
16. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. sestro