Portuguese words from Latin
2023 Portuguese words with Latin in their history, whether borrowed directly or passed on through other languages (page 11).
empenhar
It is inherited from Late Latin *impignō, a Late Latin verb reconstructed from Latin pignus (“pledge, pawn”). Compare Spanish empeñar and Italian impegnare. The Latin noun itself gave penhor. Others…
empregar
It is inherited from Latin implicō (“to fold in, entangle”), written Old Galician-Portuguese enpregar and Old Galician-Portuguese enplegar in the oldest texts. Wiktionary calls it a semi-learned…
encantar
It is inherited from Latin incantō (“to chant a spell over, to bewitch”), already Old Galician-Portuguese encantar in the oldest texts. Nascentes counts it as semi-learned. Speakers can also read it…
encarregar
Houaiss explains it as formed from Portuguese en- + carregar (“to load”). Wiktionary takes it instead from *incarricō, formed with in-, and compares Spanish encargar. carregar is from Late Latin…
encher
It is inherited from Latin impleō (“to fill”), written Old Galician-Portuguese encher in the oldest texts. The Latin group ⟨mpl⟩ became ⟨nch⟩, as in ancho from amplus; Williams notes that this…
encontrar
It is inherited from Late Latin incontrō (“to meet”), written Old Galician-Portuguese encontrar in the oldest texts. Houaiss and the DLP take the Latin verb as Late Latin, Nascentes as Medieval…
energia
It is borrowed from Late Latin energīa (“force, efficacy”), a loan of Ancient Greek ἐνέργεια (enérgeia, “activity, operation; force in action”). Houaiss adds that the word was probably spread by…
enganar
It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *ingannō (“to mock, to trick”), written Old Galician-Portuguese enganar already in the oldest texts. Wiktionary takes it from the early medieval Latin verb recorded…
enguia
It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *anguīla, a form of Latin anguīlla (“eel”) with a single /l/, which accounts for the loss of the /l/ between vowels. The oldest form is Old Galician-Portuguese…
enorme
It is borrowed from Latin ēnōrmis (“irregular, out of the rule or pattern”), formed from ex- and norma (“carpenter's square; rule, pattern”). Houaiss dates it to the 15th century from Cunha's slips…
ensaiar
It is formed from Portuguese ensaio + -ar. DELPo compares Spanish ensayar. ensaio is from Late Latin exagium (“weighing”), which in Late Latin, as in Greek, could already mean a trial or test…
ensaio
It is inherited from Late Latin exagium (“a weighing”). The Latin noun is formed from exigō (“to weigh, measure”), itself from ex- and agō (“to drive”). Corominas holds that the Late Latin word, and…
ensinar
It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *īnsignō (“to mark, point out”), written Old Galician-Portuguese ensinar and Old Galician-Portuguese enssinar in the oldest texts. The Vulgar Latin verb took the…
então
It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *intunc (“then, at that time”), written Old Galician-Portuguese enton and Old Galician-Portuguese entom in the oldest texts. The Latin form joins the preposition in…
entender
It is inherited from Latin intendō (“to stretch; to direct”), written Old Galician-Portuguese entender in the oldest texts. Nascentes explains the sense: the Latin verb meant “to direct towards…
entranha
It is inherited from Latin interānea (“the intestines”), written Old Galician-Portuguese entranna in the oldest texts. The Latin word is the neuter plural of interāneum (“intestine”), itself the…
entrar
It is inherited from Latin intrō (“to go into, enter”), written Old Galician-Portuguese intrar in the earliest record and Old Galician-Portuguese entrar from the 13th century. The Latin verb is…
entre
It is inherited from Latin inter (“between, among”), written Old Galician-Portuguese entre, Old Galician-Portuguese antre and Old Galician-Portuguese ontre in the medieval texts. Houaiss analyses…
envenenar
It is formed from Portuguese en- + veneno (“poison”) + -ar, a parasynthetic verb made from the noun with a prefix and a verbal ending at once. Vieira (1871) and Figueiredo (1899) already analyse it…
enviar
It is inherited from Late Latin inviō (“to walk upon, travel over”), written Old Galician-Portuguese enviar in the oldest texts. The DLP treats the Latin verb as a reconstruction, and Lewis and…
envidar
It is inherited from Latin invītō (“to entertain, invite”). The REW notes that almost everywhere in Romance the verb came to mean “to challenge” and “to bid” in games, while the Latin sense “to…
envolver
It is inherited from Latin involvō (“to roll onto; to wrap up”), the source that Houaiss, Cunha, Nascentes and the DLP all give. Nascentes describes the word as semi-learned. The same Latin verb is…
enxame
It is inherited from Latin exāmen (“swarm of bees”), written Old Galician-Portuguese eixame in the oldest texts. The Latin noun comes from exigō (“to drive out”). Houaiss explains the nasal first…
enxofre
It is inherited from Latin sulfur (“sulphur, brimstone”), written Old Galician-Portuguese suffre in the oldest texts, beside Old Galician-Portuguese eixuffre and Old Galician-Portuguese xuffre. The…
enxugar
It is inherited from Late Latin exsūcō (“to deprive of juice, to dry”), with the first syllable remade as en-, as in enxame. Nascentes puts the ⟨n⟩ down to the language's dislike of an isolated…
era
It is borrowed from Late Latin aera (“number, figure; era”). The Late Latin word was at first the neuter plural of aes (“bronze; money”), used for the counters and figures of a reckoning, and later…
errar
It is inherited from Latin errō (“to wander, to stray; to be mistaken”), written Old Galician-Portuguese errar in the oldest texts. Houaiss notes that the figurative sense “to make a mistake” had…
erva
It is inherited from Latin herba (“grass, herb, small plant”), written Old Galician-Portuguese erva and Old Galician-Portuguese herua in the oldest texts. The same Latin word is Galician herba…
escada
It is inherited from Late Latin *scālāta, a derivative of Latin scāla (“ladder, flight of steps”), written Old Galician-Portuguese escaada in the oldest texts. The old form shows the Latin ⟨l⟩ lost…
escala
It is borrowed from Latin scāla (“ladder, flight of steps”), a singular that Houaiss calls Late Latin, beside the classical word usually used in the plural, scālae (“steps, staircase, ladder”)…
escaldar
It is inherited from Late Latin excaldō (“to wash in hot water, to put into hot water”). The DLP calls the Latin verb Vulgar Latin. The same Latin verb is Galician escaldar, Spanish escaldar…
escama
It is inherited from Latin squāma (“scale”), written Old Galician-Portuguese escama in the oldest texts. Besides the scale of a fish or snake, the Latin word could mean mail of metal, a cataract of…
escamoso
It is borrowed from Latin squāmōsus (“covered with scales”), according to Houaiss, Cunha, Nascentes, Aurélio and the DLP. The Latin adjective, already in Plautus, is formed on squāma (“scale”) with…
escandaloso
Houaiss makes it borrowed from Latin scandalōsus (“scandalous, abominable”), as do Aurélio, the DLP and Figueiredo, and Nascentes calls it semi-learned. Wiktionary, Silva Bastos and Vieira instead…
escapar
It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *excappō (“to get out of a tight spot”), written Old Galician-Portuguese escapar in the oldest texts, a verb formed from ex- (“out”) and cappa (“hood, cloak”). The…
escaravelho
It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *scarabiculus (“little beetle”), a diminutive of Latin scarabaeus (“beetle”), in the view of Houaiss, Cunha and the DLP. Nascentes and Aurélio derive it instead…
escasso
It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *excarsus (“picked out, thinned”), written Old Galician-Portuguese escasso in the oldest texts. The Vulgar Latin form is a reduction of *excarpsus, a popular past…
esclarecer
It is formed from Portuguese es- + claro + -ecer. Vieira (1871–1874) derived it instead from Latin clārēscō (“to become bright”), and the DLE derives Spanish esclarecer from ex- and the same verb…
escoar
It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *excōlō (“to strain out, filter”), which Houaiss cites as a Latin verb meaning “to filter, strain; clear”. The REW glosses it “to drip off”, and the DLP and Porto…
escola
It is inherited from Latin schola (“lecture; school”), written Old Galician-Portuguese escola in the oldest texts. It is a popular word, but its form is semi-learned: Nascentes points to the -l-…
esconder
It is inherited from Latin abscondo (“to hide, conceal”), first written Old Galician-Portuguese asconder. The Latin verb is formed from abs- (“away”) and condo (“to put away, store”). The initial…
escorrer
It is inherited from Latin excurrō (“to run out, rush out; to extend”). The Latin verb is formed ex- + currō (“to run”). Silva Bastos and Vieira instead saw a Portuguese formation from correr with…
escova
It is inherited from Latin scōpa (“broom”). In classical Latin the word was mostly used in the plural, for twigs or sprigs and a broom made of them. Houaiss and Cunha take the singular as Late…
escravo
It is borrowed from Medieval Latin sclavus (“Slav; slave”), recorded in Portuguese from the 15th century. The Medieval Latin word, found from the 10th century, comes from Byzantine Greek Σκλάβος…
escrever
It is inherited from Latin scrībō (“to write”), written Old Galician-Portuguese escrever and Old Galician-Portuguese escrivir in the oldest texts. Houaiss glosses the Latin verb as “to mark with the…
escritor
It is borrowed from Latin scrīptor (“scribe, secretary; writer, author”). Nascentes calls it semi-learned, and Wiktionary has it from Old Galician-Portuguese escriptor. The Latin word is an agent…
escritura
It is inherited from Latin scrīptūra (“writing; a written text”), written Old Galician-Portuguese escritura and Old Galician-Portuguese scritura in the oldest texts. Nascentes considers it…
escrivão
It is inherited from Late Latin scrība, -ānis (“clerk, scribe”), the Latin noun moved from the first declension into the third, and was written Old Galician-Portuguese escrivan in the oldest texts…
escudeiro
Houaiss calls its origin disputed. Nascentes, Aurélio and the DLP consider it inherited from Late Latin scūtārius (“guardsman armed with a shield”), the singular of the name of the soldiers of the…
escudo
It is inherited from Latin scūtum (“shield”), written Old Galician-Portuguese escudo in the oldest texts. The same Latin word is Galician escudo, Spanish escudo, Catalan escut, Occitan escut, French…
escuro
It is inherited from Latin obscūrus (“dark”), by the popular route, written Old Galician-Portuguese escuro, Old Galician-Portuguese scuro and Old Galician-Portuguese oscuro in the old language. The…
escusar
It is inherited from Latin excūsō (“to excuse, plead as an excuse”), written Old Galician-Portuguese escusar in the oldest texts. Nascentes takes it as a learned word. The Latin verb is formed from…
escutar
It is inherited from Late Latin ascultō, the popular form of Latin auscultō (“to listen attentively”), written Old Galician-Portuguese ascuitar and Old Galician-Portuguese ascoitar in the oldest…
esmagar
Its origin is disputed. Houaiss tentatively takes it as inherited from Vulgar Latin *exmagō (“to lose one's strength”), and adds that the Portuguese verb first meant “to afflict, to tire oneself”…
esmeralda
It is inherited from Latin smaragdus (“emerald”), from Ancient Greek σμάραγδος (smáragdos). Aurélio starts from a feminine Vulgar Latin *smaragda. Nunes starts from *smaralda, and Cornu set up an…
espaço
It is inherited from Latin spatium (“racecourse; open space, extent; interval”), written Old Galician-Portuguese espaço and Old Galician-Portuguese spaço in the oldest texts. García de Diego counts…
espada
It is inherited from Latin spatha (“broad flat blade; broadsword”), written Old Galician-Portuguese espada in the oldest texts, with a vowel put before the initial s-. The Latin word, which also…
espantar
It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *expaventō (“to frighten”), a verb formed on expavēns, the present participle of expaveō (“to be terrified at”). The Portuguese, Spanish and Catalan form goes back…
espargir
It is inherited from Latin spargō (“to scatter, strew, sprinkle”), first written Old Galician-Portuguese esparger in the 13th century. Nascentes says it came by a semi-learned route. The same Latin…
esparso
It is borrowed from Latin sparsus (“scattered”), the past participle of spargō (“to scatter, sow, sprinkle”). Wiktionary calls it a learned borrowing, Nascentes a semi-learned one. The inherited…