talhar

Forms

talhar (first-person singular present talho, first-person singular preterite talhei, past participle talhado)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin tāliō (“to cut”), through a Vulgar Latin form *taleāre, and was written Old Galician-Portuguese tallar in the oldest texts.^[2][3][1] Houaiss's oldest forms are Old Galician-Portuguese talla (13th century), then Old Galician-Portuguese talhã and Old Galician-Portuguese talhi (14th century), with ⟨ll⟩ before ⟨lh⟩.^[2] The verb is formed on tālea (“a cutting, a thin piece of wood”).^[3][1][4] The DHLF dates the Late Latin verb to the 6th century, after the compound intertaliare (“to prune”) of the 4th, and takes pruning as its first sense.^[5] The late Roman land-surveyors use it for cutting and splitting.^[6] Vieira (1871–1874) derived it from the French verb.^[7] A. Coelho and Figueiredo already took it from Latin, as the modern dictionaries do.^[8]

The same Latin verb is Galician tallar, Spanish tajar, Catalan tallar, French tailler, Italian tagliare and Romanian tăia.^[9][1][10]

De Vaan finds no viable etymology for the Latin noun, unless it comes from tālus (“ankle, knuckle”), and calls the old comparison with Ancient Greek τᾶλις (tâlis, “young girl, bride”) a wild guess.^[11] The DHLF considers the noun a technical term, probably borrowed.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss and Cunha date the verb to the 13th century.^[2][3] In the cantigas d'escarnho Afonso X wishes that someone me talhasse melhor aquesta capa “would cut this cloak better for me”, and Afonso Eanes do Coton uses it for plain cutting.^[12] The cantigas also have the senses “to shape, outline” and “to levy the tax called talha”.^[13]

Semantic evolution

Old documents also use the verb for “to go straight across, take a short cut”, as in a document of Bragança of 1551, and for “to assess, settle, share out”: talhar soldada meant to agree on a wage.^[14] The Livros de Linhagens describe knights who talhauam escudos “hacked shields”.^[7]

Bluteau (1712) explains it as to cut or to split in two with an edged tool, and gives the tailor's sense of cutting out a garment.^[15] Morais (1789) adds the figurative talhar uma coisa por outra “to make one thing in imitation of another”.^[16] Cunha records atalhar, retalhar, entalhar and talhado from the 13th century and talhador and talhante from the 14th.^[3] Of milk, talhar means “to curdle, turn sour”, a use found both in Silva Bastos and in the speech of Rio Grande do Sul.^[17][18]

Timeline

• 13th century – first records; the form talla.^[2][3]
• 13th century – Afonso X's cantiga d'escarnho wishes a cloak had been cut better (que me talhasse melhor aquesta capa).^[12]
• 14th century – the spellings talhã and talhi.^[2]
• c. 1430 – first occurrence in the CTA corpus, in the Horto do Esposo.^[19]
• 1551 – talhando aos Barreiros “going straight across to Barreiros” in a document of Bragança.^[14]
• 1569 – Cardoso renders it with Latin recido.^[20]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau gives the tailor's sense.^[15]
• 1871–1874 – Vieira derives it from French.^[7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To cut, gash or slash: Talhou a mão num caco de garrafa.^[2][21][1]
2. To carve, sculpt or engrave: talhar um bloco de granito.^[2][21][1]
3. To cut out cloth to measure in order to make a garment;^[2][21] (intransitive) to work as a cutter.^[2][21]
4. To divide into proportional parts; to share out.^[2][22]
5. To prune or thin out trees.^[2]
6. To cut through, furrow: talhar os mares.^[2][22]
7. To shape to the measure of something; to adapt or model on another.^[2]
8. To fix or settle a price.^[2][22]
9. (figurative) To predestine, to cut out for: Nasceu talhado para o palco.^[2][22]
10. To crack or split;^[2] (also pronominal) to break open.^[2]
11. (of milk) To curdle, turn sour.^[17][18]

Word family

• talho
• talha
• talhada
• talhador
• talhante
• talhe
• atalhar
• atalho
• entalhar
• entalhe
• retalhar
• retalho

Related words

• talharim
• Latin tālea
• Galician tallar
• Spanish tajar

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. talhar
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. talha
4. ^ 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. talhar
5. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. tailler
6. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 381
7. ^ a b c 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, 666
8. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 483
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 8542
10. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. taliare
11. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. tālea
12. ^ a b 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. talhar
13. ^ Lopes, Graça Videira; Ferreira, Manuel Pedro et al. (2011–), Cantigas Medievais Galego-Portuguesas [online database], Lisboa: Instituto de Estudos Medievais, FCSH/NOVA, https://cantigas.fcsh.unl.pt, p. s.v. talhar
14. ^ a b Viterbo, Joaquim de Santa Rosa de (1798–1799), Elucidario das palavras, termos e frases que em Portugal antiguamente se usárão, 2 vols., Lisboa: Simão Thaddeo Ferreira, p. 2, 339
15. ^ 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. talhar
16. ^ 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, 441
17. ^ a b Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. talhar
18. ^ a b Schlee, Aldyr Garcia (2019), Dicionário da Cultura Pampeana Sul-Rio-Grandense, 2 vols., Pelotas: Fructos do Paiz, p. s.v. talhar
19. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. talhar
20. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. talhar
21. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. talhar
22. ^ a b c d Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. talhar