siso

Forms

siso m (plural sisos)^[1] The old language wrote seso, siso, sisoo (1301) and ssysso (14th century).^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin sēnsus (“sense, perception; understanding”), through the old form Old Galician-Portuguese seso, later Old Galician-Portuguese siso.^[2][4][1][5] Houaiss and Nascentes allow a metaphony, the raising of the stressed vowel by the final /u/;^[3] Carolina Michaëlis explained it by the influence of juízo “judgement”, a word close in meaning; and José Pedro Machado suggested that the noun is a back-formation from Old Galician-Portuguese sesudo (“sensible”).^[2][4][3] Nascentes 1955 also cites Seelmann, who put the /i/ down to the kinship of the two vowel sounds.^[6]

The same Latin word is Galician siso, Spanish seso, Italian senso and French sens.^[7][8][1] The Spanish word is recorded about 1140 with the sense “prudence”, and with the sense “brain” from 1495.^[9] The learned doublet is senso.^[1][5]

The Latin noun is formed sentiō (“to feel, perceive”) with the suffix -tus of action nouns.^[10][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The cantigas use siso for sound judgement: in a satirical song of Dom Dinis a man is said to have gone sen siso “out of his wits”, and Pai Gómez Charinho has fará bon siso “he will act wisely”.^[11][12] The Crónica Troiana praises a lady who surpassed all others de siso et de sabedoria “in good sense and wisdom”.^[11]

Semantic evolution

The word has kept the sense “good judgement, prudence” throughout; the phrase de siso meant both “sensibly” and “in earnest, with force”, and both are now rare.^[2][13] Cardoso's dictionary of 1569 rendered siso with Latin cerebrum “brain”, the sense of the Spanish seso, while Barbosa (1611) translates it mens sana “a sound mind”.^[14][15] Bluteau thought the Portuguese word imitated the Castilian one, which meant the brain as the seat of the senses.^[16]

Morais (1789) records dentes de siso, ou cabeiros, the last molars that come through in adults, and the proverbial vender siso a Catão “to sell good sense to Cato”, said of someone who would teach wisdom to the wise.^[13] The tooth name was later shortened to siso alone.^[2][17]

Timeline

• 13th century – first records, in the cantigas.^[2][5][11]
• 1301 – the spelling sisoo.^[2]
• c. 1430 – the Horto do Esposo (copied 1390–1437) has siso.^[18]
• 1569 – Cardoso glosses siso as Latin cerebrum.^[14]
• 1611 – Barbosa lists ter pouco siso and estar em seu siso.^[15]
• 1789 – Morais records dentes de siso.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. Good judgement, common sense; prudence, circumspection (circunspecção): falta-lhe o siso para gerir a loja.^{[2][17][19][1]}
2. (anatomy) A wisdom tooth, short for dente de siso or dente do siso.^[2][17][20]
3. (Portugal, regional) A disc of cork that widens the body of a distaff.^[21][22]

Word family

• sisudo
• sisudez
• desassisado

Related words

• senso
• juízo
• Latin sēnsus
• Spanish seso
• Galician siso

Usage notes

Houaiss gives the tooth sense its own article, as a shortening of dente de siso, with no separate etymology;^[23] Aulete explains that the teeth are so called because they come through between about 17 and 21, the age that marks adult life.^[2][20] Brazilian Portuguese also calls it dente do juízo, dente queiro or dente queixeiro.^[23]

The proverb muito riso, pouco siso “much laughter, little sense” is quoted by Aurélio and Aulete.^[17][20] Other set phrases are fazer o siso “to act sensibly”, jogar o siso, a game of staring each other in the eye without laughing, and perder o siso “to lose one's mind”.^[2][19]

The DLP treats the regional word for the cork disc of the distaff as a separate noun of obscure origin.^[19]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. siso
3. ^ a b c 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. seso
4. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. siso
5. ^ a b c Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. siso
6. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 474
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 7822
8. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. sensus
9. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. seso
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. sensus
11. ^ a b c 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. siso
12. ^ 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. siso
13. ^ 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, 404
14. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. siso
15. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. siso
16. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. siso
17. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. siso
18. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. siso
19. ^ 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. siso
20. ^ 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. siso
21. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. siso
22. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 8540
23. ^ a b Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. dente de siso