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vara

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Etymology and origin of the Portuguese word vara

Confidence
Established
Formation
Inherited
First attested
1257 a Galician document, as a measure of cloth, spelt uaras More words from the 13th century
Inherited from
Latin vara
Ultimate origin
Latin vārus
Etymology tree
inherited borrowed derived
Latin vārus
Spanish barro
Latin vāra
Portuguese vara
Spanish vara
From the same root
Portuguese varão ← vāra

Pronunciation

  • Brazil: /ˈva.ɾɐ/[1]
  • Portugal: /ˈva.ɾɐ/[1]
  • Northern, Portugal: /ˈba.ɾɐ/[1]

Forms

vara f (plural varas)[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin vāra (“forked pole; crossbar”), written Old Galician-Portuguese vara and Old Galician-Portuguese uara in the oldest texts.[2][3][4][1] Houaiss glosses the Latin word as a split staff that holds up a net, Nascentes as a pole that carries a board or a scaffold.[2][5] The Latin noun is the feminine of the adjective vārus (“bent outwards, bow-legged”).[6][1]

In Latin it was a technical word of builders, with several narrow senses; in Romance it took over the general sense of virga (“rod, twig”) and came to name any long thin stick.[6] Corominas finds it only in the three Iberian Romance languages, Galician vara, Spanish vara and Catalan vara, and perhaps in Occitan varo (“switch”), recorded by Mistral for Provence.[6][7] That Latin word gave Portuguese verga.[8]

Houaiss explains the legal senses by the influence of the Latin word for “rod”, which also meant the rod of a magistrate and, by extension, his office: hence the word came to mean the authority of a judge and then the court itself.[2] The further origin of that word is unclear: de Vaan mentions a derivation from Proto-Italic *wizgā and a link with Germanic words for a wisp of twigs, but notes that the forms do not agree well.[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Lorenzo's earliest record is a Galician document of 1257 that measures cloth in uaras: a cover of iij uaras d'estanforth “three varas of Stamford cloth” and cloaks de viiij uaras en longo “nine varas long”.[4] The Cantigas de Santa Maria have the word for a rod held in the hand (con hũa vara mal ameaçou “threatened with a rod”), for a hawk's perch (viu seu açor na vara “saw his goshawk on the perch”) and again for the measure.[4]

Semantic evolution

Medieval prose uses vara for a pole, a light spear (varas de lançar, throwing staves, in the Crónica of 1344) and the staff of an official: a Galician record of 1459 tells how the officers handed over as varas de justiça, their rods of justice.[4] Viterbo found the word in old leases for timber or poles used for arches.[10] Bluteau defines it as a thin, pliant branch and recalls the rods of Moses and Aaron.[11] Morais adds the pole for knocking down fruit and for punting boats, and the beam of a wine press.[12]

From the staff of office came the sense of a judge's authority and then of each court division of a district with several judges, as in vara cível and vara criminal.[2][1] Silva Bastos describes it as a judicial district of Lisbon and Porto.[13] As a unit of length the vara was five feet, about 1.1 metres, in Portugal and in the old Brazilian system.[2][1] Nascentes explains the collective sense “herd of pigs” by the custom of driving swine with a stick.[5] It also names a band of coatis, and in vulgar slang the penis.[1]

Timeline

  • 1257 – a Galician document measures cloth in uaras.[4]
  • 13th century, second half – the Cantigas de Santa Maria use vara for a rod, a hawk's perch and a measure.[4]
  • 1344 – the Crónica Geral de Espanha has varas de lançar and uara.[4]
  • 1459 – as varas de justiça, the rods of office of Galician magistrates.[4]
  • 1518 – first record in the CTA, in the Espelho de Cristina.[14]
  • c. 1539 – first record of the derivative varadouro.[3]
  • 1569 – Cardoso's dictionary renders vara as Latin virga.[15]
  • 1570 – Houaiss's first date for the measure of length.[2]
  • 1789 – Morais lists the fruit pole, the punting pole and the beam of the wine press.[12]
  • 1912 – Silva Bastos records the court districts of Lisbon and Porto.[13]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A thin, pliant branch (ramo) of a tree or shrub; a switch, a twig.[2][16][1]
  2. A long, straight pole or rod of wood, bamboo or metal, such as one used to knock down fruit; a walking staff, a cajado.[2][17]
  3. (sport) The pole of the pole vault.[2][18]
  4. A switch used for beating, and the beating itself: Naquele tempo os rapazes eram educados à vara.[2]
  5. A rib of an umbrella or a similar frame; a vareta.[2]
  6. (historical) The staff carried as a badge by judges and councillors; the authority it stood for.[2][16]
  7. (law) Each of the court divisions of a district (comarca) that has more than one judge, and the post of judge in it: O processo corre na segunda vara cível.[2][1]
  8. (historical) A former unit of length of five feet, about 1.1 metres; a piece of cloth of that length.[2][1]
  9. (music) The slide of a trombone.[2]
  10. (fishing) A fishing rod.[2]
  11. (collective) A herd of pigs; also a band of coatis.[1][5][19]
  12. (Bahia) A long loaf of bread, a bisnaga.[2]
  13. (vulgar, slang) The penis.[1]

Word family

  • varal
  • varapau
  • varear
  • varejar
  • varejão
  • varejo
  • varejista
  • varejeira
  • vareta
  • varinha

Usage notes

Houaiss, Aurélio and the DLP also record a separate noun vara “typhoon”, a storm of the south-eastern coast of India in September or October.[2][16][20] Dalgado traces it to a Marathi word várá (Konkani váró), from Sanskrit, and his first quotation is from the Commentários of 1557: Este he o tempo, em que aqui cursa a vara de Choramandel “This is the season when the vara of Coromandel blows here”.[21] It belongs to the vocabulary of the Portuguese chronicles of Asia.[21]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n 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. vara
  3. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. vara
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. vara
  5. ^ a b c Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. vara
  6. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 739
  7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 9150
  8. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. virga
  9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  10. ^ 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, 394
  11. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. vara
  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, 509
  13. ^ a b Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. vara
  14. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. vara
  15. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. vara
  16. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. vara
  17. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. vara
  18. ^ 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. vara
  19. ^ Schlee, Aldyr Garcia (2019), Dicionário da Cultura Pampeana Sul-Rio-Grandense, 2 vols., Pelotas: Fructos do Paiz, p. s.v. vara
  20. ^ 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. vara
  21. ^ a b Dalgado, Sebastião Rodolfo (1919–1921), Glossário luso-asiático, 2 vols., Coimbra: Imprensa da Universidade, p. 2, 404

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Vara.” Etymologically, 15 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/pt/vara. Accessed 16 Nov. 2026.

Last edited on . ·