ventre

Forms

ventre m (plural ventres)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote ventre and uentre in the 13th century, vetre in the 14th and vemtres in the 15th.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin venter (“belly”), written Old Galician-Portuguese ventre and Old Galician-Portuguese uentre in the oldest texts.^[2][3][4][1]

The same Latin word is Galician ventre, Spanish vientre, Catalan ventre, French ventre, Italian ventre and Romanian vintre.^[5][6]

The origin of the Latin noun is uncertain.^[7] De Vaan considers preforms with -nt- or -nd- and reconstructs Proto-Indo-European *(H)ued-ro- (“belonging to the belly”);^[7] Hamp's view that it is originally the same word as uterus is semantically attractive to him, but he finds Hamp's explanation of the nasal ad hoc.^[7] Wiktionary reconstructs *wend-tri- and compares German Wanst (“paunch”), Old High German wanast and vēsīca (“bladder”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss dates the word to the 13th century.^[2] The Cantigas de Santa Maria tell of a little boy lying in his mother's womb (ũu menynno que jazia no ventre da madre), and of a belly that swelled until it almost burst.^[8] A cantiga describes someone with a beard on the chin and a big, swollen belly (o ventre grand'e inchado).^[9]

Semantic evolution

From the start the word meant both the belly and the womb: the Miragres de Santiago say that Christ took flesh in the Virgin's womb (tomou carne ẽno ventre da Virgeẽ), and the Crónica Troiana uses it for the stomach of a snake.^[8] Bluteau (1712–1728) gives a long anatomical description of the cavity.^[10] Morais (1789) adds “pregnancy” and the legal rule o filho segue o ventre, by which a child took the free or slave status of its mother.^[11]

In Brazil the ventre livre was the freedom granted to the unborn children of enslaved women, and the law that granted it was called the Lei do Ventre Livre.^[2][12] Analogy extended the word to the bulge of a vase or column, the belly of a muscle and, in physics, the antinode of a standing wave.^[2]

Timeline

• 1200s – first records, according to Houaiss.^[2]
• 1491 – ventre in the Vida de Santo Elói.^[13]
• 1569 – Cardoso's dictionary gives Latin venter.^[14]
• 1611 – Barbosa adds Latin ventriosus for a big-bellied thing.^[15]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau describes the abdominal cavity.^[10]
• 1789 – Morais records “pregnancy” and o filho segue o ventre.^[11]
• 1871–1874 – Vieira derives it from Latin venter.^[16]

Meanings

Noun

1. The abdomen, the cavity that holds most of the digestive and genito-urinary organs.^[2][17][1]
2. By metonymy, the stomach, the bowels, or the womb: Trazia o filho no ventre.^[2][17][1]
3. The outside of the abdomen; the belly.^[2][18]
4. (anatomy) The thick middle part of certain muscles.^[2][17]
5. The bulge of a vase; the swell of a column a third of the way up from its base.^[2][19]
6. (figurative) The inside or heart of something: o ventre do navio.^[2][17]
7. (informal) Pregnancy.^[2]
8. (physics) The antinode of a standing wave; in acoustics, the part of a vibrating string between two nodes.^[2][18]
9. (botany) The swollen base of an archegonium.^[2]

Word family

• baixo-ventre
• alto-ventre
• dança do ventre
• prisão de ventre

Related words

• ventral
• ventrículo
• Latin venter
• Spanish vientre

Usage notes

Prisão de ventre is constipation;^[2] baixo-ventre and alto-ventre are the parts of the belly below and above the navel.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. ventre
3. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. ventre
4. ^ 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. ventre
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 9205
6. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. venter
7. ^ a b c 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 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. ventre
9. ^ 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. ventre
10. ^ a b Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. ventre
11. ^ 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, 17
12. ^ Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda (1975), Novo dicionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira, p. 1473
13. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. ventre
14. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. ventre
15. ^ Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. ventre
16. ^ 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, 905
17. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. ventre
18. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. ventre
19. ^ 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. ventre