trabalho

Forms

trabalho m (plural trabalhos)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote traballo (13th century), and trabalho appears in the 14th.^[2][3] Houaiss also records trebelho in the 15th century and travalho in 1899.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is a deverbal noun from Portuguese trabalhar, written Old Galician-Portuguese traballo in the oldest texts.^{[2][4][5][6][1]} The verb, old traballar, goes back to Vulgar Latin *tripāliō (“to torture”), from Late Latin tripālium, an instrument of torture made of three stakes, which is from the adjective tripālis (“standing on three stakes”).^[7][4][1] García de Diego glosses the Latin noun as a frame in which horses were held to be shod, recorded as trepalium in 6th-century glosses.^[8] The Academia's dictionary derives the noun directly from the Latin name of the instrument.^[9]

The same word is Galician traballo, Spanish trabajo and French travail.^[8][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

A Portuguese Latin text of 1124 already has the Romance word: qui miserit litem aut trabalio inter nos “whoever brings strife or trouble among us”.^[3] In the vernacular it is first found in the 13th-century Cantigas de Santa Maria, where no ox or bullock could pull the cart so well e soffrer traballo “and bear toil”, and another cantiga speaks of soffrendo traballos muitos e pesares “suffering many hardships and sorrows”.^[3]

Semantic evolution

In the medieval texts the noun means effort and fatigue, but also suffering, pain and torment.^[3] Cunha traces this to the verb: from the first idea “to suffer” it passed to “to strive, struggle” and finally “to work”.^[4] By the 16th century Cardoso and Barbosa render it with Latin labor and opera.^[10][11] Bluteau defines it as exercise, the negation of idleness.^[12] Morais (1813) gives bodily, rustic or mechanical exercise, and the trabalhos of childbirth, the pains of labour.^[13]

Today the word covers work in general, a paid job, a task or its product, and the workplace; physics uses it for work done by a force, Brazilian schools for a research assignment, and in religion it names a ritual performed to obtain something by supernatural means.^[2][1] The noun passed into the creoles as trabadja in Kabuverdianu and trabou in Papiamentu.^[1]

Timeline

• 1124 – a Latin text has trabalio “trouble, strife”.^[3]
• 13th century – traballo in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[3][2][4]
• 14th century – the spelling trabalho, in the Trasladação de S. Nicolau.^[2][14]
• 15th century – the variant trebelho.^[2]
• 1569 – Cardoso renders it with Latin labor.^[10]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau: exercise, the negation of idleness.^[12]
• 1813 – Morais records the trabalhos of childbirth.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. work, labour: the application of human effort and skill to some end: trabalho manual.^[2][6][1]
2. A job, a regular paid occupation: Arranjou trabalho numa fábrica.^[2][1]
3. A task; a piece of work, or the work produced: Entregou o trabalho ao professor.^[6][1]
4. The workplace: Saiu cedo do trabalho.^[1]
5. Effort, toil, trouble: Deu muito trabalho arrumar a casa.^[2][1]
6. (physics) Work done by a force.^[1]
7. (Brazil) A school assignment involving research.^[1]
8. (religion) A ritual performed to obtain something through spiritual intervention or magic.^[1]

Word family

• trabalhão
• trabalhinho
• trabalheira
• trabalhoso
• trabalhista
• trabalhismo

Related words

• trabalhadeira
• trabalhado
• trabalhador
• trabalhar
• trabalhável
• trabalhosamente
• Galician traballo
• Spanish trabajo

Usage notes

Trabalho de parto is the labour of childbirth.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. trabalho
3. ^ a b c d e f g 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. traballo
4. ^ a b c d Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. trabalhar
5. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. trabalho
6. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. trabalho
7. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. trabalhar
8. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. *tripalium
9. ^ 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. trabalho
10. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. trabalho
11. ^ Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. trabalho
12. ^ 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. trabalho
13. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 792
14. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. trabalho