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vinagre

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Etymology and origin of the Portuguese word vinagre

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
1365 a text in Cunha's index of medieval Portuguese, spelt uinagre More words from the 14th century
Borrowed from
Catalan vinagre
Ultimate origin
Latin vīnum,ācer

Pronunciation

  • Brazil: /viˈna.ɡɾi/[1]
  • Portugal: /viˈna.ɡɾɨ/, [viˈna.ɣɾɨ][1]
  • Northern, Portugal: /biˈna.ɡɾɨ/, [biˈna.ɣɾɨ][1]
  • Portugal, Southern: /viˈna.ɡɾɨ/[1]

Forms

vinagre m (plural vinagres)[1] Old forms are uinagre (14th century) and vynagre (15th century).[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Catalan vinagre, a compound of vin (“wine”) and agre (“sour”), from Latin vīnum (“wine”) and ācre (“sharp, sour”).[3][4][1][5] Houaiss, following Cunha, and Wiktionary take it through vinagre.[2][1] Corominas holds that the final ⟨-e⟩ and the kept ⟨-n-⟩ prove that the Portuguese word is a Catalanism.[4] Nascentes, in 1955, had still derived it straight from Latin, explaining the ⟨-n-⟩ by a following semivowel.[6] Corominas calls that explanation artificial.[4]

The Catalan compound spread through the western Romance languages, to Spanish and to Occitan vinagre, French vinaigre and Italian vinagro.[7][4] In Spanish it replaced the native acedo, according to Corominas because of the abundant vinegar-making of the lower Ebro, and in Portuguese it displaced azedo.[4][1] The Latin word for wine goes back to *wīnom and a Proto-Indo-European *wéyh₁ō.[8][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The DDGM, citing Machado, says that the first record is a Portuguese text of 1188.[9] Houaiss dates the word to 1365 and Cunha to the 14th century, in the Orto do Esposo.[2][10] A medieval Galician text glossed in the DDGM has se teuer pũta de vjnagre tãto he mellor “if it has a touch of vinegar, so much the better”.[9]

Semantic evolution

The word has kept its meaning, and the dictionaries of the 16th and 17th centuries render it by Latin acetum.[11][12][13] Derivatives came early: avinagrado is recorded in 1539, vinagreiro in 1620 and the cruet vinagreira in 1721.[14][15][16]

Morais (1789) records the figurative é um vinagre “he has a sour temper”, and Vieira (1871–1874) the proverbs de bom vinho bom vinagre and apregoa vinho e vende vinagre.[17][18] Brazil added the sense “miser”, and as an adjective the word describes a bull, dog or horse of reddish-brown coat.[2][19] It is also the name of the bush dog of South America.[20]

Through the Portuguese of the East the word passed into Konkani, Malayalam, Sinhalese and Tamil.[1]

Timeline

  • 1188 – the first record, a Portuguese text, according to the DDGM citing Machado.[9]
  • 1365 – Houaiss's first date, from Cunha's index of medieval Portuguese, spelt uinagre.[2]
  • 14th century – vinagre in the Orto do Esposo.[10]
  • 1496 – vinagre in the História de mui nobre Vespasiano.[21]
  • 1539 – first record of avinagrado.[14]
  • 1569 – Cardoso's dictionary renders vinagre by Latin acetum.[11]
  • 1721 – first record of vinagreira, the vinegar cruet.[16]
  • 1789 – Morais records the figurative sense “sour-tempered person”.[17]

Meanings

Noun

  1. vinegar, a sour liquid made by the acetic fermentation of wine or other alcoholic drinks, used to season and preserve food: Tempera os tomates só com sal e vinagre.[2][1][22]
  2. acetic acid.[23][24]
  3. (by extension) Anything sour.[2][24]
  4. (figurative) Something harsh, unpleasant or painful; a caustic, ironic tone.[2][22]
  5. (figurative) A sour-tempered, prickly person.[2][23]
  6. (Brazil, informal) A miser.[2][23]
  7. (zoology) The bush dog (Speothos venaticus).[20]

Adjective

  1. Of a bull, horse or dog: having a reddish-brown coat.[2][24][19]

Word family

  • avinagrar
  • vinagreira
  • vinagreiro
  • vinho
  • acre
  • vinagrete
  • Catalan vinagre

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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. vinagre
  3. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. vinagre
  4. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 822
  5. ^ Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. vinagre
  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. 526
  7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 9356
  8. ^ 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. vīnum
  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. vjnagre
  10. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. vinagre
  11. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. vinagre
  12. ^ Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. vinagre
  13. ^ 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. vinagre
  14. ^ a b Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. avinagrado
  15. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. vinagreiro
  16. ^ a b Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. vinagreira
  17. ^ 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, 526
  18. ^ 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, 950
  19. ^ a b Schlee, Aldyr Garcia (2019), Dicionário da Cultura Pampeana Sul-Rio-Grandense, 2 vols., Pelotas: Fructos do Paiz, p. s.v. vinagre
  20. ^ 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. vinagre
  21. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. vinagre
  22. ^ a b Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 9511
  23. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. vinagre
  24. ^ a b c Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. vinagre

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Vinagre.” Etymologically, 15 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/pt/vinagre. Accessed 16 Nov. 2026.

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