tordo

Forms

tordo m (plural tordos)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin turdus (“thrush”).^[2][3][4][1]

The same Latin word is Galician tordo, Spanish tordo, Catalan tord, Italian tordo and French tourd.^[5][6][1] In Romanian, sturz owes its initial s- to a crossing with sturnus (“starling”), and its -z to the plural.^[5]

The Latin noun goes back to *torzdos, and its relatives name the thrush in other branches: truit, strazdas and дрозд (drozd).^[7][1] Wiktionary reconstructs Proto-Indo-European *trosdos, de Vaan *(s)tr(o)sdʰo-.^[1][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss dates the first record of the word to 1500.^[2] The first dictionaries gloss it only by the Latin name of the bird: Cardoso's of 1569 has tordo “turdus”.^[8]

Semantic evolution

Bluteau in 1712 describes the thrush as a small black-and-white bird the size of a blackbird, good to eat and fat at vintage time, when it gorges on grapes, and quotes the saying doença de tordo, rosto magro, corpo gordo “a thrush's illness: thin face, fat body”.^[9] Morais in 1789 calls it a common black-and-white bird.^[10] Vieira in 1871 records the name for a large green fish spotted with yellow, and later dictionaries identify it as a Mediterranean wrasse.^[11][12] Nascentes found no clear reason for the fish name and suggested its colour.^[3]

In Portugal the word names several thrushes, some resident and some migrant, with compounds such as tordo-visgueiro and tordo-pisco.^[13][12] Brazilian usage calls the related birds sabiá.^[12][2] On the border of Rio Grande do Sul with the Plate countries, where Spanish also says tordo, the name is given to the glossy black cowbird.^[14]

Timeline

• 1500 – first record, according to Houaiss.^[2]
• 1569 – Cardoso's Portuguese–Latin dictionary lists tordo.^[8]
• 1611 – Barbosa glosses it “a bird”, Latin turdus.^[15]
• 1712 – Bluteau describes the bird and quotes the saying doença de tordo, rosto magro, corpo gordo.^[9]
• 1789 – Morais: a common bird, black and white.^[10]
• 1871 – Vieira records the fish sense.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. A thrush, any of several songbirds of the genus Turdus, some resident in Portugal and others passing through it on migration.^[13][16][1]
2. (Portugal) The bird called sabiá in Brazil.^[2][17]
3. A Mediterranean wrasse, green with yellow spots (Labrus turdus).^[12][17]
4. (Rio Grande do Sul) The shiny cowbird (Molothrus bonariensis).^[14]

Related words

• turdo
• Latin turdus
• Spanish tordo

Usage notes

Cair como tordos means to fall in great numbers at once, and cair como um tordo to fall suddenly, or to drop dead.^[16][17]

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 Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. tordo
3. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. tordo
4. ^ Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. tordo
5. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 8999
6. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. turdus
7. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. tordo
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. tordo
10. ^ 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, 468
11. ^ a b 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, 765
12. ^ 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. tordo
13. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. tordo
14. ^ a b Schlee, Aldyr Garcia (2019), Dicionário da Cultura Pampeana Sul-Rio-Grandense, 2 vols., Pelotas: Fructos do Paiz, p. 2
15. ^ Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. tordo
16. ^ 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. tordo
17. ^ a b c 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. tordo