touro

Forms

touro m (plural touros)^[1] Toiro is a common variant, especially in Portugal.^[1][2][3] Houaiss records toro in the 14th century and tourros in the 15th.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin taurus (“bull”), written Old Galician-Portuguese touro in the oldest texts.^[4][5][6][1]

The same Latin word is Galician touro, Spanish toro, Catalan toro, Italian toro, Old French tor and Romanian taur.^[7][8][1] The French word taureau is a derivative of torel.^[9] Portuguese also kept the feminine as toura “barren cow”.^[7]

The Latin word goes back to *tauros, with cognates in Old Irish tarb, Ancient Greek ταῦρος (taûros) and Lithuanian taũras (“aurochs”).^[10] De Vaan notes that the word lacks a Latin sound change seen in parvus, has no cognate in Indo-Iranian or Tocharian, and resembles Semitic words for “bull”, so it may be an early loanword into the western Indo-European languages.^[10] Wiktionary sets up *táwros, probably from a substrate, and compares *ṯawr-.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the Cantigas de Santa Maria the devil comes out en figura de touro, “in the shape of a bull”, to strike a man with his horns ben como touro faz, “just as a bull does”; another cantiga tells of a bull that came to kill a man.^[11] The sense was the bull, the uncastrated male of cattle.^[11]

Semantic evolution

Bullfighting is in the medieval texts: the Crónica Geral has correr touros “to run bulls”.^[11] Barbosa (1611) has Correr touros, and Morais (1789) gives the plural touros for the bullfight in which a horseman and men on foot provoke the bull in the ring, with the sayings lançar a capa ao touro “to leave everything behind to save oneself” and ver-se nos cornos do touro “to be in great danger”.^[12][13] Derivatives followed: toureiro in the 16th century, tourear and toureador in the 17th, tourada in 1874.^[5]

The word also names the constellation and the second sign of the zodiac, Taurus, and figuratively a very strong, fiery man.^[4][14] In the Algarve a touro is a pot of maize porridge, and in the Brazilian jogo do bicho it is group 21.^[4][15]

Timeline

• 13th century – first record, in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[4][5][11]
• 14th century – the form toro.^[4]
• c. 1430 – touro in the Horto do Esposo.^[16]
• 16th century – first record of toureiro.^[5]
• 1569 – Cardoso's dictionary translates touro with Latin taurus.^[17]
• 1611 – Barbosa lists Correr touros.^[12]
• 17th century – tourear and toureador.^[5]
• 1789 – Morais records the plural touros “bullfight”.^[13]
• 1874 – first record of tourada.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A bull, the uncastrated male of cattle, kept for breeding.^[4][14][1]
2. (bullfighting) A bull of a fighting breed, used in bullfighting.^[4][15]
3. (figurative) A very strong, vigorous man: O irmão dele é um touro.^[4][14]
4. (astronomy, astrology, capitalised) Taurus, the second constellation and sign of the zodiac.^[4][14]
5. (Brazil) In the jogo do bicho, group 21.^[4][14]
6. (Algarve) A pot of maize porridge.^[4][15]
7. (in the plural) A bullfight, a tourada.^[4][18]

Word family

• tourada
• toureador
• tourear
• toureiro

Related words

• toura
• taurino
• Latin taurus
• Spanish toro

Usage notes

Pegar o touro pelos chifres “to take the bull by the horns” means, in Brazil, to face a difficult situation firmly.^[4][19] In Rio Grande do Sul a touro de capa is a bull about to be castrated.^[4][18]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. touro
3. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 9072
4. ^ 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. touro
5. ^ a b c d e f Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. touro
6. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. touro
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 8602
8. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. taurus
9. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. taureau
10. ^ 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, p. s.v. taurus
11. ^ a b c d 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. touro
12. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. touro
13. ^ 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, 472
14. ^ a b c d e Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. touro
15. ^ a b c 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. touro
16. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. touro
17. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. touro
18. ^ a b 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. touro
19. ^ 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. touro