soluço

Forms

soluço m (plural soluços)^[1] Houaiss records soluço from the 14th century and the plural soluços from the 15th.^[2] A variant saluço, now old and informal, appears in the 15th century as ssalluços.^[3] Wiktionary gives saluço as an alternative form.^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin suggluttium (“sob, hiccup”), a form found in late Latin glosses.^[2][4][1] This is an alteration of classical Latin singultus (“sobbing, hiccup”), reshaped as if it were a derivative of gluttiō (“to swallow”).^[4][5][1] Houaiss names instead the verb subglūtiō (“to swallow with difficulty”) as the influence.^[2]

The verb soluçar, first recorded in 1553, is a derivative of the noun according to Houaiss.^[6] Cunha records it from the 16th century and an older Old Galician-Portuguese saluçar from the 14th.^[7] The Cantigas de Santa Maria already have saluçadas in a phrase meaning “weeping in sobs”.^[8] Wiktionary derives the verb either from the noun or from an older Old Galician-Portuguese solluçar.^[1]

The same Latin word is Galician salouco, Spanish sollozo and Romanian sughiț; French sanglot, Catalan sanglot and Italian singhiozzo go back to a variant with ⟨-ngl-⟩.^{[9][8][10][1]} The DCECH sees the dialect forms of Sanabria in north-western Spain as a bridge between the Spanish word and the Portuguese one.^[8]

De Vaan finds no regular formation behind the Latin noun, which may have been built on the model of other words in ⟨-ultus⟩.^[11] Its root has been compared with Proto-Indo-European *sengʷʰ- (“to sing”) and with *sengʷ- (“to sink, fall”), but neither comparison is certain.^[11] Wiktionary gives its origin as unknown.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss dates the noun to the 14th century from a record of Cunha's, without quoting it.^[2] The verb is older in the record: the Cantigas de Santa Maria use a saluçadas for weeping broken by sobs.^[8] Weeping broken by spasmodic breaths is Houaiss's first sense.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Beside the sob and the hiccup, Houaiss records from 1563 a seaman's sense, the pitching of a ship as it dips its bow.^[2] Morais in 1789 defines the word as a sigh repeated with a broken voice and gives the nautical sense too, quoting Barros on a ship pitching.^[12][13] Later dictionaries extend it to the heaving of the sea, a loud rumbling noise, the call of some birds and the flickering of a flame.^[2][14] Porto Editora also gives a ring dance of the Azores called soluços in the plural.^[15]

In southern Brazil, Schlee records folk remedies to stop a fit of hiccups, among them a rhyme that sends the hiccup away “to someone who has none”.^[16]

Timeline

• 14th century – first record of soluço.^[2]
• 14th century – saluçar, the older spelling of the verb.^[7]
• 15th century – the plural soluços, and the variant ssalluços.^[2][3]
• 1553 – first record of soluçar.^[6]
• 1563 – first record of the nautical sense, a ship's pitching.^[2]
• 1701 – a private letter writes solusos.^[17]
• 1755 – Folqman's dictionary renders soluço by Latin singultus.^[18]
• 1789 – Morais defines the sob and the nautical sense.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. A sob: a sudden, noisy breath that breaks up weeping; weeping broken by such breaths: Contou tudo entre soluços.^[2][5][1]
2. (physiology) A hiccup, the involuntary spasm of the diafragma that ends in a sharp sound as the glottis closes: O bebé está com soluços.^{[2][5][19][1]}
3. (nautical, dated) The pitching of a ship as it dips its bow.^[2][19][20]
4. (figurative) The heaving of the sea or of the waves.^[2][5][19]
5. (figurative) A loud, broken noise, a roar; any sound like a sob: os soluços do vento na chaminé.^[2][5][14]
6. The call of certain birds.^[2][14]
7. The rise and fall of a flame or of the light of a lamp.^[2][14]

Word family

• soluçar

Related words

• singulto
• Latin singultus
• Galician salouco
• Spanish sollozo

Usage notes

The phrase aos soluços means “by fits and starts, with interruptions”.^[15][21]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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. soluço
3. ^ a b Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. saluço
4. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. soluço
5. ^ a b c d e Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. soluço
6. ^ a b Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. soluçar
7. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. soluçar
8. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 297
9. ^ Estraviz, Isaac Alonso, Dicionário Estraviz, https://estraviz.org, p. s.v. salouco
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 7944
11. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
12. ^ 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, 416
13. ^ Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 720
14. ^ a b c d 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. soluço
15. ^ a b Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 8611
16. ^ Schlee, Aldyr Garcia (2019), Dicionário da Cultura Pampeana Sul-Rio-Grandense, 2 vols., Pelotas: Fructos do Paiz, p. 2, s.v. soluço
17. ^ 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. soluço
18. ^ Folqman, Carlos (1755), Diccionario portuguez, e latino, Lisboa: Régia Officina Silviana (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. soluço
19. ^ a b c Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. soluço
20. ^ 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. soluço
21. ^ 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. soluço