sino

Forms

sino m (plural sinos)^[1] Houaiss records the spellings syno (1390), synno (1391) and ssyno (1393).^[2] The form sino was also the medieval spelling of signo “sign”, used in that sense until the 16th century.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin signum (“sign, mark”), written Old Galician-Portuguese sino in the oldest texts.^[2][4][1] Houaiss explains the word as the popular outcome of the Latin noun, a doublet of the learned signo and of senho.^[2] Cunha calls it a semi-learned variant of the same word.^[5] Wiktionary adds senha to these doublets.^[1] The sense comes from the bell as the instrument that gives the signal for the hour of prayer.^[2][4]

In Late Latin the noun itself came to mean “bell”: the REW notes that the sense is first found in Gregory of Tours, perhaps as a translation of a Greek word.^[6][7] The same use survives in Galician sino, Catalan seny and Old Occitan senh, and through the Occitan compound tocasenh in French tocsin.^[6][1][7]

The Latin word is derived either from Proto-Indo-European *sek- (“to cut”) or from *sekʷ- (“to follow”).^[1] The OLD too connects it with secō (“to cut”).^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

A Latin document of 1101 already lists sinum among the goods of a church, together with books and a chalice.^[3] The first vernacular records have the older sense “sign”: a charter of 1265 has meu sino “my sign”, the notary's mark, and others of 1282 and 1289 do the same.^[3] The sense “bell” is frequent in the Cantigas de Santa Maria, as in mandou os sinos tanger “ordered the bells to be rung”.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The Miragres de Santiago use the plural both for church bells and for small hand-bells.^[3] In the sense “sign” the word was replaced by the learned signo, but it lingered in the phrase sino samão or sino salomão, the six-pointed star of two crossed triangles.^[9][10] The early dictionaries gloss the bell with Latin cymbalum and tintinnabulum.^[11][12] Barbosa (1611) also has Sineyro, the bell-ringer, and tanger os sinos “to ring the bells”.^[11][12] Bluteau describes the bell as the instrument that calls Christians to church.^[13]

From the bell's shape the word named a diving bell, recorded by Silva Bastos in 1912, and later an orchestral instrument of tuned metal tubes.^[14][2] Silva Bastos also records the slang sense “a large glass of wine”.^[14] The sino de correr was the bell that rang the hour for taverns to close and for Jews and Moors to go home.^[2] The word passed into Kabuverdianu and Tetum as sinu and into Sinhalese.^[1]

Timeline

• 1101 – a Latin document lists sinum among a church's goods.^[3]
• 1265 – meu sino “my sign” in a charter.^[3]
• 13th century, second half – sinos “bells” in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[3][2]
• 1365 – first record of siineiro, the bell-ringer.^[15]
• 1390 – the spelling syno.^[2]
• 1569 – Cardoso glosses Sino with cymbalum.^[11]
• 1611 – Barbosa lists tanger os sinos and Sineyro.^[12]
• 1789 – Morais records sino samão and refers to signo.^[9]
• 1858 – first record of sineta, a small bell.^[16]
• 1912 – Silva Bastos records the diving bell.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. A bell: a hollow instrument, usually of bronze, shaped like an inverted cup, sounded by a clapper (badalo) inside or a hammer outside: Os sinos da igreja tocaram ao meio-dia.^[2][17][1]
2. Anything shaped like a bell.^[2]
3. (obsolete) A sign; signo.^[2][18]
4. A diving bell, a chamber shaped like a truncated pyramid in which divers go down to the bottom.^[19][17]
5. (music) An orchestral instrument made of a set of metal tubes that sound like bells; tubular bells.^[2][19]

Word family

• sineiro
• sineta

Related words

• signo
• senha
• senho
• sinal
• Latin signum
• Galician sino
• Catalan seny

Usage notes

Houaiss and Aurélio have a separate, archaic sino “gulf, bay”, from Latin sinus (“curve, fold; bay”), which Houaiss dates to 1552; it is a doublet of seio and seno.^[2][17][1] Vieira quotes it from Tenreiro's Itinerário in the phrase sino pérsico “the Persian Gulf”, and Morais (1789) defines it as a bay or inlet.^[20][9]

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 e f g h i j k l m Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. sino
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. sino
4. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. sino
5. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. sino
6. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 7908
7. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. tocsin
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. signum
9. ^ a b c 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, 403
10. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 472
11. ^ a b c Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. sino
12. ^ a b c Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. sino
13. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. sino
14. ^ a b c Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. sino
15. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. sineiro
16. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. sineta
17. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. sino
18. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. sino
19. ^ a b Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 8528
20. ^ 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, 533