vau

Forms

vau m (plural vaus)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote vao and uaao, plural vaaos.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin vadum (“shallow water, ford”), written Old Galician-Portuguese vao in the oldest texts.^[2][3][5][1] The Latin /d/ between vowels was lost, as the old spelling Old Galician-Portuguese uaao shows.^[2][6]

The same Latin word is Galician vao, Spanish vado and Romanian vad.^[7][1] In Italian, French, Occitan and Catalan it was crossed with the Frankish word wad, which gave Italian guado, French gué, Occitan ga and Catalan gual.^[7][8] García de Diego notes that the Spanish form took its -d- from the words in -ado, beside an older Old Spanish vao.^[6]

The Latin noun belongs with the verb vādō (“to advance, proceed”).^[9][10] De Vaan reconstructs it as *waðom, from Proto-Indo-European *weh₂dʰ- (“to advance”), the root of the Germanic verb for “to wade” (vaða, watan) and of the nouns vað and wat “ford”.^[10][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

A Latin charter of 1068 already has the Romance spelling uaao.^[2] In Galician-Portuguese the word is recorded in the 13th century: in one of the Cantigas de Santa Maria a man goes into a river at a ford (meteu-ss'enton a vao en aquel rio).^[3][4]

Semantic evolution

The figurative sense was already medieval: in a satirical cantiga Johan Fernandez d'Ardeleiro says non acho vao a meu feito “I find no way out for my affair”, where achar vao means “to find a solution”.^[4] Houaiss lists the senses “ford”, “shoal” and, figuratively, “favourable occasion, opportunity”, and dates the shipbuilding sense, a cross-beam that carries the deck, to 1597–1617.^[2] Vieira in 1871 records tentar o vau “to sound the ford”, used of looking into a matter carefully before going ahead.^[11]

In Goiás a vau de cauda is a ford where the water reaches only the animal's tail or belly, and a vau de orelha one that the animal must swim.^[2][12] In Rio Grande do Sul a vau is said of crossing a stream without swimming.^[13] The verb vadear “to ford” is not derived from vau: Cunha takes it from Spanish in the 16th century.^[3]

Timeline

• 1068 – a Latin charter writes uaao.^[2]
• 13th century – vao in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[3][4]
• 14th century – the plural vaaos;^[2][4] achar vao “to find a way out” in a satirical cantiga.^[2][4]
• 16th century – vadear is borrowed from Spanish.^[3]
• 1597–1617 – the shipbuilding sense, a deck beam.^[2]
• 1813 – vadoso, from Latin, is recorded.^[3]
• 1871 – Vieira records tentar o vau.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. A ford, a shallow place in a river, lake or sea that can be crossed on foot or on horseback: Atravessaram o ribeiro pelo vau.^[2][14][1]
2. A shoal, a sandbank or a raised part of the sea floor; baixio.^[2][15][1]
3. (figurative) A favourable occasion, an opportunity.^[2][14]
4. (nautical) A cross-beam joining two opposite frames of a ship and carrying the deck; in the plural, the crosstrees at a masthead.^[2][15][12]

Related words

• vadear
• vadoso
• Latin vadum
• Spanish vado
• Galician vao

Usage notes

A vau means on foot or on horseback through the water;^[2][16] não achar vau not to find a way across, and figuratively to find no way out of a situation;^[2][16] de vau a vau from one end to the other.^[2][16]

Houaiss, Aurélio and the DLP also record a separate, obsolete vau, the old name of the letter V, from the Greek name bau, from the Hebrew letter name vav “nail, hook”; the DLP also uses it for the sixth letter of the Hebrew and Phoenician alphabets.^{[2][17][16][5]}

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. vau
3. ^ a b c d e f g Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. vau
4. ^ a b c d e f 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. vao
5. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. vau
6. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. vadum
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 9120a
8. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 727
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. uadum
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
11. ^ a b Vieira, Frei Domingos (1871–1874), Grande Diccionario Portuguez ou Thesouro da lingua portugueza, 5 vols., Porto: Ernesto Chardron e Bartholomeu H. de Moraes, p. 5, 878
12. ^ 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. vau
13. ^ Schlee, Aldyr Garcia (2019), Dicionário da Cultura Pampeana Sul-Rio-Grandense, 2 vols., Pelotas: Fructos do Paiz, p. 2
14. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. vau
15. ^ a b 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. vau
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. vau
17. ^ Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. vau