tamarindo

Forms

tamarindo m (plural tamarindos)^[1] Older forms are tamaranda (15th century and 1516) and tamarindi (1563).^[2][3] Tamarinho is a Portuguese variant, recorded from 1516;^[4][1] Wiktionary also lists tambarino, tambarina and tamarina.^[4][1]

Etymology

For Houaiss it is borrowed from Medieval Latin tamarindus, from Arabic تمر هندي (tamr hindī, “date of India”), and Wiktionary gives the same route.^[2][1] Cunha, Nascentes, the DLP and Porto Editora take it straight from the Arabic phrase.^[3][5][6][7] Corriente lists the word for Spanish, Catalan and Portuguese and traces it to the Neo-Arabic phrase, literally “Indian dates”.^[8] The phrase is made of تمر (tamr, “dates”) and هندي (hindī, “Indian”); the first word also gave Portuguese tâmara.^[9][1]

Nascentes reports that Dalgado preferred a Persian form of the phrase, and that Yule thought its first word might originally have meant “fruit” rather than “date”.^[10]

The same Medieval Latin word is the source of French tamarin, recorded as tamarinde in the 13th century, and of Italian tamarindo, spelt tamerindo by Marco Polo; Spanish tamarindo is recorded from 1555 and Galician tamarindo has the same form.^{[11][12][13][14]} The botanical genus name of 1735, Tamarindus, comes from the Medieval Latin word.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The word names both the tree, Tamarindus indica, probably native to tropical Africa, and its pod, whose dark, sour pulp is used in medicine and for sweets, ice cream, soft drinks and sauces.^[2][15] The DLP also records the purified pulp used as a purgative.^[6] The tree has many other names, such as tamarindeiro, tamarineira and tamarinheiro, tamanhã in São Tomé, and tamarina and jubaí in Brazil.^[2][16] In the CE-DOHS corpus of Bahian documents the word first appears in 1897.^[17]

Timeline

• 1333 – first record, spelt tamarindo.^[2]
• 15th century – the form tamaranda.^[2]
• 1516 – tamarindo and tamaranda in Cunha's records, and the variant tamarinho.^[3][4]
• 1563 – the form tamarindi.^[2]
• 1609 – the tree name tamarinneiro (modern tamarindeiro).^[3]
• 1735 – the botanical genus Tamarindus is named.^[2]
• 1897 – first record in the CE-DOHS Bahian corpus.^[17]

Meanings

Noun

1. The tamarind tree, Tamarindus indica, a large leguminous tree of tropical Africa, cultivated in warm countries; tamarindeiro.^[2][15][1]
2. The fruit of this tree, a brown pod with a sour edible pulp, used in pharmacy and in sweets and drinks.^[2][7][1]
3. (botany) The genus Tamarindus, which has a single species.^[2][16]

Word family

• tamarindal
• tamarindeiro

Related words

• tâmara
• tamarinho

Usage notes

Tamarindo is also a Portuguese surname, which Nascentes takes from the common noun.^[18]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. tamarindo
3. ^ a b c d Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. tamarindo
4. ^ a b c Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. tamarinho
5. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. tamarindo
6. ^ a b 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. tamarindo
7. ^ a b Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 8801
8. ^ Corriente, Federico; Pereira, Christophe; Vicente, Ángeles (2019), Dictionnaire des emprunts ibéro-romans: emprunts à l'arabe et aux langues du monde islamique (Encyclopédie linguistique d'Al-Andalus 3), Berlin: De Gruyter, p. s.v. tamarinde
9. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. tâmara
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. 484
11. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. tamarin
12. ^ Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli, p. s.v. tamarindo
13. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. támara
14. ^ Estraviz, Isaac Alonso, Dicionário Estraviz, https://estraviz.org, p. s.v. tamarindo
15. ^ a b 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. tamarindo
16. ^ a b Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. tamarindo
17. ^ a b Carneiro, Zenaide de Oliveira Novais; Lacerda, Mariana Fagundes de Oliveira (orgs.), CE-DOHS: Corpus Eletrônico de Documentos Históricos do Sertão, Feira de Santana: UEFS, http://www5.uefs.br/cedohs, p. s.v. tamarindo
18. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1952), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 2: Nomes próprios, Rio de Janeiro, p. s.v. tamarindo