tartaruga

Forms

tartaruga f (plural tartarugas)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Italian tartaruga according to Cunha, Nascentes, Aurélio and the DLP, and Nocentini also takes the Portuguese word from Italian.^{[2][3][4][5][6][1]} Nascentes adds that it came by way of trade, and that the older Portuguese name of the animal was cágado.^[3]

Houaiss derives it directly from Late Latin tartarūcha (in a Late Latin phrase meaning “Tartarean beast”), the feminine used as a noun of tartarūchus “belonging to Tartarus”, adapted from Ancient Greek ταρταροῦχος (tartaroûkhos), from Τάρταρος (Tártaros, “Tartarus, the underworld”).^[7][1] In the East and among the early Christians the turtle, living in the mud, stood for evil and heresy, as against the cock, the bird of light.^[7] The Late Latin word is found on a Christian curse tablet from Traù (Trogir), and the Greek one, the name of an infernal spirit, first in a magical papyrus.^[8][9] DELI reports that this explanation, put forward by Rudolf Egger in 1930, is generally accepted, but that Prati objected that the oldest Italian forms, such as tartuca, speak against it.^[8] Nocentini starts from that older form or tortuca, which he derives from Latin tortus (“twisted”), for the shape of the animal's feet, with the suffix of marruca.^[6]

The same word, through Occitan, is French tortue, and Spanish tortuga was still tartuga in 1490.^[10][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss dates the word to the 15th century from Cunha's index of medieval Portuguese.^[7][2] The earliest Italian records that DELI lists are of the 16th century: tartaruga in Aretino (1534) and tartaruca in Ramusio.^[8]

Semantic evolution

Barbosa (1611) still glosses the word with cagado, and Morais (1789) describes an amphibian with a shell and four feet whose shell is made into combs.^[11][12] The name passed to the material of the shell, tortoiseshell, and by likeness to the testudo of the Roman soldiers and to a wicker basket with an arched lid.^[7][5]

In Brazil it also names a dish of turtle meat, an electric water heater, and the small bumps or studs across a road that slow the traffic.^{[7][4][13][1]} From the slowness of the animal it is said of a slow person, and since at least 1912 it has been a word for an old and ugly person.^[1][14][4] Manado Malay borrowed it as tuturuga.^[1]

Timeline

• 15th century – first record.^[7][2]
• 1490 – the Spanish form tartuga.^[7]
• 1534 – the earliest Italian record that DELI cites.^[8]
• 1611 – Barbosa: Tartaruga, ou cagado.^[11]
• 1789 – Morais notes the combs made from the shell.^[12]
• 1912 – Silva Bastos records the popular sense “old and ugly person”.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. A turtle or tortoise: any reptile of the order of the chelonians, with a body protected by a shell.^[7][4][1]
2. Specifically, an aquatic or sea turtle, as opposed to the land species called jabuti.^[7][1]
3. (Brazil) The hawksbill turtle, tartaruga-de-pente.^[7][4]
4. tortoiseshell, the horny material of the shell, used for combs, boxes and spectacle frames.^[7][15]
5. (Brazil, cooking) A dish of turtle meat, tartarugada.^[7][4]
6. (Brazil) An immersion heater for water.^[7][16]
7. (history, military) The testudo, a cover of shields under which soldiers advanced.^[7][5]
8. (Brazil, colloquial) A road stud or speed bump.^[1][13]
9. (colloquial) A slow person.^[1]
10. (derogatory) An old and ugly person.^[4][5][17]

Word family

• tartarugada
• tartaruguinha
• tartaruga-de-pente
• tartaruga-marinha
• tartaruga-de-couro
• tartaruga-verde

Related words

• cágado
• Italian tartaruga
• Spanish tortuga
• French tortue

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. tartaruga
3. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. tartaruga
4. ^ a b c d e f g Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. tartaruga
5. ^ a b c d 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. tartaruga
6. ^ a b Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier, p. s.v. tartaruga
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. tartaruga
8. ^ a b c d Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli, p. s.v. tartaruga
9. ^ Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. ταρταροῦχος
10. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. tortue
11. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. tartaruga
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, 446
13. ^ a b Instituto da Lingua Galega, Tesouro do léxico patrimonial galego e portugués (TLPGP), Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, https://ilg.usc.gal/tesouro, p. s.v. tartaruga
14. ^ a b Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. tartaruga
15. ^ 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. tartaruga
16. ^ Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda (1975), Novo dicionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira, p. 1380
17. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. tartaruga