soberano

Forms

soberano (feminine soberana, masculine plural soberanos, feminine plural soberanas)^[1] The old spelling was soverano (15th century); soberano is recorded from the 16th century, and Houaiss has soberanas in 1572.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *superānus (“that is above”), from Latin super (“above”).^{[2][3][4][5][1]} Nascentes calls it a semi-learned word.^[6]

The same Latin word is Spanish soberano, French souverain, Old Occitan sobiran and Italian soprano, “ruler” in old Tuscan; Italian sovrano is taken from French, and Catalan sobirà was influenced by superior.^[7][8] Spanish has it from the first half of the 13th century.^[9]

The Latin preposition goes back to *super, from Proto-Indo-European *upér (“over, above”), the source also of Ancient Greek ὑπέρ (hupér) and German über.^[1]

Semantic evolution

Bluteau gives three senses: a sovereign prince who depends on no other power, “haughty”, and “excellent”, as in soberano remédio “a sovereign remedy”.^[10] Morais (1789) adds the noun, o meu soberano “my king”.^[11] Later the adjective was applied to any authority that has no superior, such as a people, a parliament or a court, and figuratively to whatever is foremost or excellent.^[2][5] Popular speech used the noun for the English gold coin, the pound sterling, which Nascentes explains by the sovereign's effigy on it.^[6][2][12] In regional speech of Portugal it names a weaned calf of three or four months.^[2][4]

Timeline

• 15th century – first record, as soverano.^[2][3]
• 16th century – the spelling soberano.^[3]
• 1572 – the feminine plural soberanas.^[2]
• 1648 – a private letter uses soberano.^[13]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau records soberano poder and soberano remédio.^[10]
• 1813 – first record of the derivative soberania.^[3]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Holding supreme power; sovereign (of monarchs): o rei soberano.^[2][1]
2. Exercising supreme authority without restriction: um Estado soberano.^[2][5][4]
3. dominant, powerful, influential.^[2][5]
4. Decisive; very effective, of a medicine.^[2]
5. (figurative) Foremost; excellent in its kind, supreme: uma beleza soberana.^[2][5][1]
6. (figurative) haughty, arrogant: um sorriso soberano.^[2][12]

Noun

1. A monarch, the ruler of a state: king, emperor or sultan.^[2][1]
2. A person of great influence or power; a magnate.^[2]
3. A sovereign, the English gold coin worth one pound sterling.^[2][4]
4. (Portugal, regional) A weaned calf of three or four months.^[2][4]

Word family

• soberania

Related words

• sobre
• soprano
• superior
• Latin super
• Spanish soberano

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 n o p q Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. soberano
3. ^ a b c d e Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. soberano
4. ^ a b c d e 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. soberano
5. ^ a b c d e Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. soberano
6. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. soberano
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 8457
8. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. souverain
9. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. sobre
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. soberano
11. ^ 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, 406
12. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. soberano
13. ^ CLUL (ed.) (2014), P.S. Post Scriptum: Arquivo Digital de Escrita Quotidiana em Portugal e Espanha na Época Moderna, Lisboa: Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, http://ps.clul.ul.pt, p. s.v. soberano