vaso

Forms

vaso m (plural vasos)^[1] Houaiss records uaso and the plural vassos in the 14th century.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin vāsum (“vessel”), written Old Galician-Portuguese vaso and Old Galician-Portuguese uaso in the oldest texts.^[2][3][1] Houaiss, Cunha and Aurélio call this form Vulgar Latin, beside classical vās; de Vaan and Wiktionary record it as pre-classical, from Naevius on, and Wiktionary notes that classical Latin uses it only in the plural.^{[2][3][4][5][1]} Nascentes takes the singular as made on the plural vāsa, as with osso.^[6]

The same Latin word is Galician vaso, Spanish vaso, Catalan vas, Italian vaso and Romanian vas; the REW notes that Portuguese also used it for a grave.^[7][1] The Spanish word is first recorded in Berceo.^[8]

The Latin word goes back to Proto-Italic *wāss, with the cognate Umbrian vasus, but has no etymology beyond Italic.^[5][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantigas de Santa Maria have un vaso dourado “a gilded vessel” and un vaso de prata “a silver vessel”, and the Crónica Troiana speaks of dous vasos de mel claro “two jars of clear honey”.^[9] A cantiga of escarnho uses it for a drinking cup: de vos dar én pelo vas' a bever “to give you to drink from it by the cup”.^[10]

Semantic evolution

Bluteau (1712–1728) notes that orators and poets call anything that holds something a vessel: Camões calls the human body terreno vaso and the tomb negro vaso.^[11] Morais (1789) adds the earthenware pot for flowers, the vessels of the body that carry its fluids, and a woman's vaso.^[12] Later senses include a ship, the vessels of plants, a chamber pot and, in Brazil, the toilet bowl, vaso sanitário.^[4][13][1]

Malay borrowed it as pasu, whence Indonesian pasu and Tagalog paso.^[1]

Timeline

• 13th century – first record;^[2][3][9] un vaso dourado in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[2][3][9]
• 14th century – the spellings uaso and vassos.^[2]
• c. 1430 – first record in the CTA corpus, in the Horto do Esposo.^[14]
• 15th century – first record of vasilha.^[3]
• 1697 – Pereira renders Vaso with Latin vas.^[15]
• 1789 – Morais records the flowerpot and the vessels of the body.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. A vessel or receptacle: any concave container for liquids or solids.^[2][4][1]
2. An ornamental vase, often for cut flowers.^[2][16][1]
3. A flowerpot filled with earth for growing plants.^[2][4][17]
4. (by extension) Any receptacle (receptáculo).^[4][13]
5. (anatomy) A tube that carries blood, lymph or another body fluid; a blood vessel.^[4][1][18]
6. (botany) A tubular structure that carries sap.^[4][18]
7. A chamber pot;^[4][13][17] vaso de noite.^[4][13][17]
8. (Brazil) A toilet bowl, vaso sanitário.^[4][16][1]
9. A ship.^[13][17]
10. (religion) The pyx that holds the consecrated hosts.^[16][17]
11. (popular) The vagina.^[4][16][17]

Word family

• vaso sanitário
• vaso-
• extravasar

Related words

• vasilha
• vasilhame
• vascular
• Latin vās
• Spanish vaso

Usage notes

Houaiss and Aurélio also record a separate noun vaso, an old black woollen cloth worn for mourning, which Houaiss dates to the 15th century and takes as probably from English baize;^[2][4][17] Aurélio calls its origin uncertain.^[2][4][17]

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 Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. vaso
3. ^ a b c d e Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. vaso
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. vaso
5. ^ 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. vās
6. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 520
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 9161
8. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 749
9. ^ 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. vaso
10. ^ Universo Cantigas: Glosario da poesía medieval profana galego-portuguesa, A Coruña: Instituto da Lingua e Literatura (ILLA), Universidade da Coruña, https://www.universocantigas.gal, p. s.v. vaso
11. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. vaso
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, 12
13. ^ a b c d e Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. vaso
14. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. vaso
15. ^ 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. vaso
16. ^ a b c d 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. vaso
17. ^ a b c d e f g h Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 9399
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. vaso