tronco

Forms

tronco m (plural troncos)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin truncus (“trunk of a tree or body”).^[2][3][4][1]

The same Latin word is Galician tronco, Spanish tronco, Catalan tronc, French tronc and Italian tronco.^[5][6][1]

De Vaan takes the Latin noun from an older adjective of the same form meaning “maimed, trimmed”, a tree or body robbed of its branches or head, and rejects the proposed links with Germanic and Lithuanian verbs for pushing.^[7] Wiktionary calls it of unknown origin, perhaps from *twerḱ- (“to cut”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

A Latin charter of 1060 already has iacia in tronco et in katena “he lay in the stocks and in chains”, with the Romance spelling.^[8] Houaiss and Cunha date the Portuguese word to the 13th century.^[2][3] The Horto do Esposo, copied 1390–1437, has the first record in the dated prose corpus.^[9]

Semantic evolution

Besides the trunk of a tree and of the body, the word named from the start the wooden stocks in which prisoners were held, which led to the sense “prison”: Pereira (1697) translates it carcer.^[8][10] Folqman (1755) and Morais (1789) add tronco de geração, the ancestor in whom a family began, and the figurative sense “blockhead”.^[11][12]

In colonial Brazil the tronco was the post or stocks to which slaves were tied to be flogged.^[2][13][1] Other senses are a frame for holding cattle to be branded, a ship's mast, a frustum in geometry, and in linguistics the top level of a language family; in Ceará it means drunkenness.^[2][14][1] The prison sense passed into Dutch and Afrikaans as tronk.^[1]

Timeline

• 1060 – in tronco et in katena in a Latin charter.^[8]
• 13th century – first record of the Portuguese word.^[2][3]
• c. 1430 – tronco in the Horto do Esposo.^[9]
• 1697 – Pereira glosses tronco as “prison”.^[10]
• 1755 – Folqman lists tronco de geração.^[11]
• 1789 – Morais lists the plant, the body, the lineage, the prison and the stocks.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. The trunk of a tree or shrub, the woody stem between root and crown; also a thick branch.^[2][15][1]
2. (anatomy) The torso, the body without the head, neck and limbs; the main stem of a nerve or vessel.^[2][15][1]
3. The stocks, a wooden block with holes in which the feet or neck of a prisoner were fastened.^[2][16][1]
4. (Brazil, historical) A post where slaves were tied to be punished.^[2][1]
5. A prison or jail.^[2][16][1]
6. The stock of a family, its line of descent.^[2][17]
7. A frame or narrow pen in which cattle are held to be branded, shorn or treated.^[2][18]
8. (geometry) A frustum: tronco de cone.^[2][1]
9. (linguistics) The top-level family of languages, a filo.^[2][1]
10. (figurative) A dull, stupid person.^[2]
11. (Ceará, informal) drunkenness.^[2][14]

Word family

• destroncar
• entroncar
• entroncamento
• troncudo

Related words

• troncho
• truncado
• truncar
• Latin truncus

Usage notes

Houaiss, Aurélio and Nascentes record a separate adjective tronco “maimed, truncated”, first in 1690, an alteration of troncho influenced by the noun.^[2][15][4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p 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 Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. tronco
3. ^ a b c Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. tronco
4. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. tronco
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 8956
6. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 661
7. ^ 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 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. tronco
9. ^ a b Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. tronco
10. ^ a b Pereira, Bento (1697), Thesouro da lingoa portuguesa, in the 1697 edition of his Prosodia (1st ed. 1647; CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. tronco
11. ^ a b Folqman, Carlos (1755), Diccionario portuguez, e latino, Lisboa: Régia Officina Silviana (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. tronco
12. ^ 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, 495
13. ^ Schlee, Aldyr Garcia (2019), Dicionário da Cultura Pampeana Sul-Rio-Grandense, 2 vols., Pelotas: Fructos do Paiz, p. 2
14. ^ a b Navarro, Fred (2004), Dicionário do Nordeste, São Paulo: Estação Liberdade, p. s.v. tronco
15. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. tronco
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. tronco
17. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. tronco
18. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 9227