veia

Forms

veia f (plural veias)^[1] Houaiss records veas (13th century), veeas and venas (14th), ueya (15th) and veia from 1513;^[2][3] Cunha has vẽa in the 13th century and vea in the 15th.^[2][3] Morais in 1789 calls veia a better spelling than vea.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin vēna (“blood vessel”), written Old Galician-Portuguese vẽa in the oldest texts.^[2][3][5][1] The /n/ between vowels fell and left a nasal vowel, later lost, and the spelling ⟨veia⟩ with a glide followed in the 16th century.^[2][3] The same Latin word is Galician vea, Spanish vena, Catalan vena, French veine, Italian vena and Romanian vână.^[6][1]

The origin of the Latin word is uncertain: de Vaan considers a *ues-no- (“of blood”), linked with Avestan words for blood, and mentions derivations from roots meaning “to blow” or “to convey”, which he finds hard to justify in meaning.^[7] Lewis & Short related it to the root of vehō (“to carry”).^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Miragres de Santiago tell of a man whose veas do pescoço “veins of the neck” and sinews were broken.^[9] Houaiss and Cunha date the word to the 13th century.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

From the blood vessel the word was extended, as in Latin, to other channels: a small stream or current of water, a route of communication, a vein of ore and the veins of leaves.^[2][10][11] The mining sense is old in its derivative veeiro, recorded as ueero in the 13th century.^[12][3] The figurative sense “bent, talent”, as in veia poética, is in Silva Bastos and the original Caldas Aulete.^[11][13]

Timeline

• 13th century – veas and vẽa.^[2][3]
• 13th century – the derivative ueero “vein of ore”.^[12]
• c. 1430 – veia in the Horto do Esposo (manuscript of 1390–1437).^[14]
• 1496 – vea in the Regimento proveitoso contra a pestenença.^[15]
• 1513 – the spelling veia.^[2]
• 1789 – Morais prefers veia to vea.^[4]
• 1881 – first record of veio “vein of rock or ore”.^[16]

Meanings

Noun

1. (anatomy) A vein: a vessel that carries blood back to the heart: A enfermeira não encontrava a veia.^[2][10][1]
2. (popular) Any blood vessel.^[2][17]
3. A small stream or current of water.^[2][11][1]
4. (figurative) A road or other route of communication.^[2][11]
5. (figurative) A natural bent or talent: veia cómica, veia poética.^[2][10]
6. A vein of ore, a lode.^[2][17][1]
7. (botany, zoology) A vein of a leaf or of an insect's wing.^[2][10][1]

Word family

• veeiro
• veio
• cordoveias

Related words

• venoso
• vênula
• Latin vena
• Galician vea

Usage notes

Veia with an open /ɛ/ is also a colloquial Brazilian form of velha “old woman”, more often written véia.^[18][1] In some dialects of Portugal veia is a form of aveia “oats”.^[19]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. veia
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. veia
4. ^ 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, 13
5. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. veia
6. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. vena
7. ^ 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. vēna
8. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. vēna
9. ^ 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. vea
10. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. veia
11. ^ a b c d 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. veia
12. ^ a b Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. veeiro
13. ^ Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. veia
14. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. veia
15. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. vea
16. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. veio
17. ^ 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. veia
18. ^ Schlee, Aldyr Garcia (2019), Dicionário da Cultura Pampeana Sul-Rio-Grandense, 2 vols., Pelotas: Fructos do Paiz, p. s.v. veia
19. ^ Instituto da Lingua Galega, Tesouro do léxico patrimonial galego e portugués (TLPGP), Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, https://ilg.usc.gal/tesouro, p. s.v. veia