verruga

Forms

verruga f (plural verrugas, diminutive verruguinha)^[1] The variant berruga, recorded from the 14th century, is now Brazilian and popular.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin verrūca (“wart; hillock”), written Old Galician-Portuguese berruga and Old Galician-Portuguese verruga in the oldest texts.^[5][3][1] The Latin /k/ between vowels became /ɡ/.^[1][3]

The same Latin word is Galician verruga, Spanish verruga, Catalan berruga, French verrue and Italian verruca.^[6][7] Corominas counts Portuguese among the languages that kept the initial /v/, where Spanish and Catalan often have ⟨b⟩.^[7] The Latin word first meant “height, steep place”, the wart being a small height on the skin.^[8][9] De Vaan traces it to Proto-Indo-European *u(e/o)rs-u- (“height, top”), with cognates in Lithuanian viršùs (“top”) and Old Church Slavonic врьхъ (vrĭxŭ, “top”).^[9][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old Galician-Portuguese Verruga is recorded as a place name from the 13th century.^[1] The Miragres de Santiago tell of a man on whom naçeulle hũa atal berruga “such a wart grew” where he had cut himself, and the Vita Christi speaks of something sem magoa e sem verruga ou engelhamento “without stain and without wart or wrinkle”.^[10]

Semantic evolution

Barbosa (1611) has the diminutive verruguinha and the adjective verruguento;^[11][12] Bluteau describes the kinds of wart in the medicine of his time.^[11][12] Morais defines it as a callous growth with roots that springs up on the body.^[13] Modern dictionaries add the botanical sense of a small rough protuberance and the figurative one of a blemish that spoils a harmonious whole.^[5][14] Learned derivatives were taken from Latin: verrucal in the 17th century, verruciforme and verrucífero in 1899.^[3]

Timeline

• 13th century – Verruga as a place name.^[1]
• 14th century – berruga.^[2][3]
• 15th century – verruga.^[5][3]
• 1611 – Barbosa lists verruguinha and verruguento.^[11]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau describes the kinds of wart.^[12]
• 1813 – verrugoso.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. (dermatology) A wart: a small, hard growth on the skin, usually caused by a virus.^[5][4][1]
2. (botany) A small rough protuberance.^[5][4]
3. (figurative) A blemish that spoils the beauty of a whole.^[14]

Word family

• verrugoso
• verruguento

Related words

• verrucoso
• Latin verrūca
• Spanish verruga

Usage notes

In Rio Grande do Sul many charms are believed to remove warts, one of them a formula said nine nights running while pointing at a star.^[15]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. berruga
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. verruga
4. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. verruga
5. ^ a b c d e Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. verruga
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. verruca
7. ^ a b Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 791
8. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. verrūca
9. ^ 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
10. ^ 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. berruga
11. ^ a b c Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. verruga
12. ^ a b c Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. verruga
13. ^ Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 846
14. ^ a b 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. verruga
15. ^ Schlee, Aldyr Garcia (2019), Dicionário da Cultura Pampeana Sul-Rio-Grandense, 2 vols., Pelotas: Fructos do Paiz, p. s.v. verruga