terra

Forms

terra f (plural terras)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin terra (“dry land, earth”), written Old Galician-Portuguese terra in the oldest texts.^[2][3][1] Houaiss notes the wide range of the Latin noun, from soil and dry land to the world, its peoples and, with a capital, the goddess Earth.^[2] Old spellings of the 15th century include Old Galician-Portuguese tera.^[2]

The same Latin word is Galician terra, Spanish tierra, Catalan terra, French terre, Italian terra and Romanian țară (“country”).^[4][1] The Spanish word is recorded from the second half of the 10th century.^[5]

The Latin noun goes back to Proto-Italic *tersā- (“earth”) and Proto-Indo-European *ters-h₂- (“dry land”), from the root *ters- (“to dry out”); de Vaan cites Oscan teras (“earth”) and Old Irish tír (“territory”) as cognates.^[6] Wiktionary compares Ancient Greek τέρσομαι (térsomai, “to become dry”) and Old English þurst, the ancestor of the English word thirst.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss and Cunha date the word to the 13th century.^[2][3] In the Cancioneiro da Ajuda it means a region or the land where one was born, and Pero da Ponte speaks of a terra de mouros “land of the Moors”.^[7] The Cantigas de Santa Maria have paz en terra “peace on earth” and per mar e per terra “by sea and by land”, and the Crónica Troiana uses it for the ground a man is thrown down on.^[7]

Semantic evolution

Houaiss dates the senses “region, territory”, “landed property”, “place where one was born” and “country” to the 14th century.^[2] Medieval documents also used the word as a term of law and land tenure.^[8] The terra was the income the king granted to nobles and knights in certain places, whence senhor de terras.^[8] In the 13th century terras calvas were fields cleared and ploughed, and later barren hills.^[8] A terra chaã was a small unwalled village, and terra gallega poor heathland, in documents of Coimbra of 1290 and 1495.^[8]

Bluteau describes terra as the globe and as the driest, coldest and heaviest of the four elements, and Morais repeats the element.^[9][10] Morais also gives the sense “land as opposed to sea”, as in sair em terra “to disembark”.^[10] Today the name of the planet is written with a capital, a Terra.^[2] In Brazil terra is also one of the names people give to a kind of banana.^[11]

Timeline

• 13th century – terra “region, homeland” in the Cancioneiro da Ajuda and paz en terra in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[7][3]
• 1290 – terras gallegas “poor land” in a document of São Pedro de Coimbra.^[8]
• 14th century – first dates for “territory”, “landed property” and “native place”.^[2]
• 1350 – first occurrence in the CTA corpus, in the Trasladação de S. Nicolau.^[12]
• 15th century – the spelling tera.^[2]
• 1569 – Cardoso renders it with Latin humus and terra.^[13]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau describes the globe and the element.^[9]
• 1789 – Morais gives sair em terra “to disembark”.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. (astronomy; usually with a capital) The Earth, the third planet from the Sun.^[2][14][1]
2. The solid surface of the planet; the ground, chão: O avião voltou à terra.^[2][15][1]
3. Dry land, as opposed to the sea: terra à vista.^[2][14][1]
4. soil, earth: the loose upper layer of the ground in which plants grow.^[2][14][1]
5. A region or territory; a country.^[2][15][1]
6. Land owned by someone; a farm (fazenda) or estate, often in the plural.^[2][15][1]
7. The place where one was born or lives; homeland, pátria: Voltou para a terra dele.^[2][1]
8. A settlement, town or village.^[2][15]
9. Dry particles of earth; dust.^[2][14]
10. The grave; the place where the dead are buried.^[2]

Word family

• aterrar
• aterro
• enterrar
• enterro
• desenterrar
• desterrar
• desterro
• soterrar

Related words

• terraço
• terreiro
• terremoto
• terreno
• térreo
• terrestre
• territorial
• território
• conterrâneo
• Latin terra
• Spanish tierra

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o 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 r Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. terra
3. ^ a b c Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. terra
4. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 8668
5. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 488
6. ^ 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. terra
7. ^ a b c 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. terra
8. ^ a b c d e 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, 378
9. ^ 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. terra
10. ^ a b c 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, 454
11. ^ 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. terra
12. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. terra
13. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. terra
14. ^ a b c d Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. terra
15. ^ a b c d 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. terra