visconde

Forms

visconde m (plural viscondes)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote bisconde (14th century) and bizconde (14th–15th centuries); vizcondes is recorded in the 15th century.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Medieval Latin vicecomes (“deputy of a count”), written Old Galician-Portuguese bisconde and Old Galician-Portuguese bizconde in the oldest texts.^{[2][3][5][1][4]} Houaiss and Cunha quote the Latin title in the genitive and gloss it “substitute of the count”;^[2][3][1] Wiktionary calls the word a learned borrowing.^[2][3][1] Houaiss, Cunha, Nascentes and Wiktionary all take it directly from Latin and name no French or Spanish intermediary.^[2][3][5][1]

The Latin title is formed from vice (“in place of”) and comes (“companion; count”), the source of conde.^[1][6] Nascentes cites Brachet for the phrase in an 8th-century text.^[7] In Medieval Latin the title meant the permanent deputy of a count over the whole county.^[8] Silva Bastos and the old Caldas Aulete analyse the Portuguese word as a compound of vice- with the word for “count”, and the DLE explains Spanish vizconde the same way.^[9][10][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

Lorenzo's chronology gives the earliest records from chronicles: the Galician Crónica General has “bisconde de Bearte… condes et biscondes”, and the Crónica de 1344 “bizconde de Bearte… morreo este bizconde” (“viscount of Bearte… this viscount died”).^[4]

Semantic evolution

Fernão Lopes still writes bizconde in the 15th century.^[4] Barbosa (1611) and Pereira (1697) give the word as Visconde with the Latin vicecomes.^[12][13] Bluteau explains it as the one who acts in place of a count, once the count's lieutenant during his absence, and reports Du Cange's view that the title is modern.^[14] Morais (1813) defines it as a title of nobility below a count.^[15] In the CE-DOHS corpus of Bahian documents it first appears in 1854.^[16]

Timeline

• 14th century – first records, bisconde and bizconde, in chronicles.^[2][3][4]
• 15th century – Fernão Lopes writes bizconde; the plural vizcondes is recorded.^[4][2]
• 1500 – a private letter has biscõde.^[17]
• 1611 – Barbosa's dictionary lists Visconde.^[12]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau discusses the origin of the title.^[14]
• 1813 – Morais defines it; the derivative viscondado is recorded.^[15][3]

Meanings

Noun

1. viscount: a title of nobility below that of conde and above that of barão.^[2][18][1]
2. The holder of this title.^[18][19]
3. (history) An official who stood in for the count in the government of his county.^[2][20]
4. (history) A feudal lord of a viscondado.^[2][21]
5. (Portugal, regional) A variety of apple.^[19]

Word family

• viscondessa
• viscondado

Related words

• conde
• vice-
• Medieval Latin vicecomes
• Spanish vizconde

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 Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. visconde
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. visconde
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. bisconde
5. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. visconde
6. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. vice
7. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 527
8. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. vicecomes
9. ^ Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. visconde
10. ^ 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. visconde
11. ^ 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. vizconde
12. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. visconde
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. visconde
14. ^ 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. visconde
15. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 858
16. ^ Carneiro, Zenaide de Oliveira Novais; Lacerda, Mariana Fagundes de Oliveira (orgs.), CE-DOHS: Corpus Eletrônico de Documentos Históricos do Sertão, Feira de Santana: UEFS, http://www5.uefs.br/cedohs, p. s.v. visconde
17. ^ CLUL (ed.) (2014), P.S. Post Scriptum: Arquivo Digital de Escrita Quotidiana em Portugal e Espanha na Época Moderna, Lisboa: Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, http://ps.clul.ul.pt, p. s.v. visconde
18. ^ a b Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 9538
19. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. visconde
20. ^ Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. visconde
21. ^ 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. visconde