Etymologically
Log in

terça-feira

History Permalink

Etymology and origin of the Portuguese word terça-feira

Confidence
Established
Formation
Inherited
First attested
1300s spelt terça feyra More words from the 14th century
Inherited from
Latin tertia feria
Ultimate origin
Ecclesiastical Latin tertia fēria
Etymology tree
inherited borrowed derived
Latin fēriae
Italian ferragosto
Latin fēria
French foire
Italian fiera
Portuguese feira
Portuguese terça-feira
Spanish feria
German feiern
From the same root
Latin fēriātus ← fēriae

Pronunciation

  • Brazil: /ˌteʁ.sɐˈfe(j).ɾɐ/, [ˌteh.sɐˈfe(ɪ̯).ɾɐ][1]
  • São-Paulo: /ˌteɾ.sɐˈfe(j).ɾɐ/, [ˌteɾ.sɐˈfe(ɪ̯).ɾɐ][1]
  • Rio-de-Janeiro: /ˌteʁ.sɐˈfe(j).ɾɐ/, [ˌteχ.sɐˈfe(ɪ̯).ɾɐ][1]
  • Caipira: /ˌteɻ.sɐˈfe(j).ɾɐ/, [ˌteɻ.sɐˈfe(ɪ̯).ɾɐ][1]

Forms

terça-feira f (plural terças-feiras)[1] Houaiss records terça feyra in the 14th century and terça feira in the 15th.[2] The plural is terças-feiras.[3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Ecclesiastical Latin tertia fēria (“third weekday”), written Old Galician-Portuguese terça feira in the medieval texts.[1][2] Several dictionaries analyse it as a compound from Portuguese terça + feira.[3][5][6]

Cunha explains that in the early Middle Ages the Church named the weekdays other than Saturday and Sunday in Latin, from secunda fēria onwards, and that Portuguese is the Romance language that adopted these names, recorded from its beginnings.[7] Medieval Latin used the phrase in this sense too.[8] In the liturgy feria meant a feast day or day of rest; because merchants sold their goods to the crowds at the religious festivals, the word came to mean “fair, market”, and the original sense was lost in the weekday names.[7][9] The name replaced the older Old Galician-Portuguese martes.[1] The Galician form is terza feira and the Mirandese one terça-feira.[1]

terça is from Latin tertia (“third”).[10]

Timeline

  • 14th century – first record, as terça feyra.[2]
  • 15th century – the spelling terça feira.[2]
  • By 1500 – a private letter writes terça feyra.[11]
  • 1871–1874 – Vieira defines it as the third day of the week, quoting the Autos of António Prestes.[12]

Meanings

Noun

  1. Tuesday, the third day of the week counting from Sunday, between segunda-feira and quarta-feira: A reunião ficou para terça-feira.[2][3][1]
  2. Terça-feira Gorda: Shrove Tuesday, the last day of carnaval.[2][3][13]

Adverb

  1. On Tuesday: Chego terça-feira.[1]

Usage notes

It is often shortened to terça.[2][3] Terça-feira Gorda is written with capital initials.[2][4] The word was borrowed into Tetum as loron-tersa.[1]

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 Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. terça-feira
  3. ^ a b c d e Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. terça-feira
  4. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. terça-feira
  5. ^ 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. terça-feira
  6. ^ 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. terça-feira
  7. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. feira
  8. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. feria
  9. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. feira
  10. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. terço
  11. ^ 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. terça-feira
  12. ^ 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, 706
  13. ^ 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. terça-feira

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Terça-feira.” Etymologically, 15 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/pt/ter%C3%A7a-feira. Accessed 16 Nov. 2026.

Last edited on . ·