Portuguese words from Latin
2023 Portuguese words with Latin in their history, whether borrowed directly or passed on through other languages (page 19).
manhã
It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *maneāna (“morning”), written Old Galician-Portuguese mannãa in the oldest texts. The Vulgar Latin word is short for a phrase meaning “(at an) early hour”, with…
manter
It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *manūteneō (“to hold in the hand; to support”), written Old Galician-Portuguese manteer in the oldest texts. The Latin verb joins manus (“hand”), in the ablative…
mão
It is inherited from Latin manus (“hand”), written Old Galician-Portuguese mão and, in the oldest texts, also Old Galician-Portuguese mano. The older form still has the /n/ that the later spelling…
máquina
It is borrowed from Latin machina (“machine, engine; contrivance”), recorded from the 15th century. Nascentes and Houaiss treat it as a learned word. The Latin word is from Ancient Greek μαχανά…
mar
It is inherited from Latin mare (“sea”), written Old Galician-Portuguese mar in the oldest texts. The same Latin word is Galician mar, Spanish mar, Catalan mar, French mer, Italian mare and Romanian…
maravilha
It is inherited from Latin mīrābilia (“wonderful things”), the neuter plural of mīrābilis (“wonderful”), and was written Old Galician-Portuguese maravilha in the oldest texts. The /a/ of the first…
maravilhoso
It is formed from Portuguese maravilha + -oso, written Old Galician-Portuguese maravilloso in the oldest texts. The noun is from Latin mīrābilia (“wonderful things”), the neuter plural of mīrābilis…
marca
Its origin is disputed. Houaiss reports Cunha's derivation: borrowed from Late Latin marca (“boundary, frontier”), from a Germanic word for “limit, frontier” connected with Latin margō (“edge…
março
It is inherited from Latin Mārtius (“(month) of Mars”), written Old Galician-Portuguese março in the oldest texts. The Latin word is an adjective used as a noun, with mēnsis (“month”) understood…
marido
It is inherited from Latin marītus (“husband”), written Old Galician-Portuguese marido in the oldest texts. The same Latin word is Galician marido, Spanish marido, Catalan marit, French mari and…
marinha
It is inherited from Latin marīna (“(water) of the sea”), the feminine of marīnus (“of the sea, marine”) used as a noun, written Old Galician-Portuguese marinna in the oldest texts. Nascentes…
mármore
It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *marmorem, the oblique form of Latin marmor (“marble”), and was written Old Galician-Portuguese marmor in the oldest texts. Nascentes takes it as a learned word…
marra
It is inherited from Latin marra (“weeding hoe”), a Latin word that Houaiss glosses “hoe for weeding; a kind of fishing hook”. The same Latin word is Italian marra, French marre, Old Occitan marra…
martelo
It is inherited from Late Latin martellus (“hammer”), written Old Galician-Portuguese martelo in the oldest texts. Houaiss and Cunha take the Late Latin word for a variant of martulus, itself an…
mas
It is inherited from Latin magis (“more”), through the old form Old Galician-Portuguese mais, which was shortened to the present form when it was used as an unstressed conjunction. Carolina…
mascar
It is inherited from Late Latin masticō (“to chew”), a post-classical verb. Vieira calls the Portuguese verb a contraction of the Latin one. Its learned doublet is mastigar. The same Latin word is…
massa
It is inherited from Latin massa (“lump, mass; dough”), written Old Galician-Portuguese massa in the oldest texts. The same Latin word is Galician masa, Spanish masa, Catalan massa, French masse and…
mastigar
It is inherited from Latin masticō (“to chew”). Nascentes and Wiktionary call it a semi-learned word and set it beside mascar, the popular outcome of the same Latin verb. The REW lists only the…
matar
It is Old Galician-Portuguese matar in the oldest texts, a verb whose origin has long been disputed. Houaiss gives Corominas's view first: it is inherited from Vulgar Latin *mattō (“to strike, knock…
matéria
It is borrowed from Latin māteria (“timber; the stuff of which something is made”), a learned word; the inherited outcome of the same Latin noun is madeira “wood”. The Latin noun is formed from…
matrimonial
It is borrowed from Latin mātrimōniālis (“of marriage”), a learned word of the 15th century. Cunha lists it under matrimônio, which Houaiss dates to the 14th century. The same Latin adjective is…
mau
It is inherited from Latin malus (“bad”), written Old Galician-Portuguese mao in the oldest texts. The Latin -l- between vowels is lost in the Galician-Portuguese form, which has the same shape in…
máximo
It is borrowed from Latin maximus (“greatest”), the superlative of magnus (“great”). Nascentes counts it among the learned words. The adverb maximamente is recorded first, in 1572; the adjective…
mealha
It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *medalia, written Old Galician-Portuguese mealla in the oldest texts. Houaiss, following Cunha and Nascentes, derives it from mediālia, the neuter plural of…
médico
It is borrowed from Latin medicus (“physician; healing, medical”), a learned word. Houaiss notes the archaic forms Old Galician-Portuguese meje and mege, recorded in the 13th century, which…
medir
It is inherited from Latin mētior (“to measure”), written Old Galician-Portuguese medir in the oldest texts. The Latin verb was deponent; Nascentes, the Aurélio and the REW start from an active…
medo
It is inherited from Latin metus (“fear”), written Old Galician-Portuguese medo in the cantigas. The closed /e/ of the stressed vowel, which was short in Latin, is explained by metaphony, the…
meio
It is inherited from Latin medius (“middle, central”), written Old Galician-Portuguese meio, Old Galician-Portuguese meyo and Old Galician-Portuguese meo in the oldest texts. Houaiss derives the…
meio-dia
It is formed from Portuguese meio + dia, “the middle (of the) day”, already as Old Galician-Portuguese meyo dya in the 13th century. meio is from Latin medius (“middle”). dia comes from *dia, a…
mel
It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *melem, from Latin mel (“honey”), written Old Galician-Portuguese mel in the oldest texts. The Vulgar Latin form added a final -e and took a masculine or feminine…
melão
It is inherited from Late Latin mēlō (“melon”), recorded in the plural ⟨melões⟩ in the 14th century. The Latin word is a shortening of Latin mēlopepō (“a kind of melon”), attested from the late 4th…
melhorar
It is inherited from Late Latin meliōrō (“to improve”), written Old Galician-Portuguese melhorar and Old Galician-Portuguese mellorar in the oldest texts. The Late Latin verb is formed from Latin…
melro
It is inherited from Late Latin merulus (“blackbird”), the Late Latin masculine of the classical merula. The oldest Portuguese form is Old Galician-Portuguese merlo, with the unstressed /u/ lost…
membro
It is inherited from Latin membrum (“limb, part of the body”), written Old Galician-Portuguese membro and nembro in the oldest texts. Nascentes considers the modern form learned, and Wiktionary says…
memória
It is borrowed from Latin memoria (“memory”), taken into the language by the learned route and written Old Galician-Portuguese memoria from the 13th century. The Latin noun is formed on memor…
mendigar
It is inherited from Latin mendīcō (“to beg, be a beggar”), written Old Galician-Portuguese mendigar in the oldest texts. Wiktionary calls it a semi-learned word. The same Latin verb is Galician…
menor
It is inherited from Latin minor (“smaller, lesser”), written Old Galician-Portuguese meor in the oldest texts. Nascentes considers the modern form a learned remaking on the Latin word, since the…
menos
It is inherited from Latin minus (“less”), the neuter of minor (“smaller, less”). The oldest texts also write Old Galician-Portuguese mẽos, with or without the tilde, lacking the /n/; Nascentes…
mente
It is inherited from Latin mēns (“mind, intellect”), written Old Galician-Portuguese mente in the oldest texts. Portuguese continues the oblique cases of the Latin noun, not its nominative. The same…
mentir
It is inherited from Latin mentior (“to lie”), through the active infinitive that Late Latin used in place of the deponent, written Old Galician-Portuguese mentir in the oldest texts. Forms with /i/…
mercado
It is inherited from Latin mercātus (“trade; market, fair”), written Old Galician-Portuguese mercado in the oldest texts. The Latin noun is formed on mercor (“to trade, deal”) with the action-noun…
mercar
It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *mercō (“to trade, buy”), an active form that replaced the deponent verb Latin mercor (“to trade, buy”). The OLD cites the active form from a papyrus. The Latin…
mercê
It is inherited from Latin mercēs (“wages, reward”), written Old Galician-Portuguese mercee in the oldest texts. The /d/ between vowels was lost, and the two like vowels of the old form were later…
merda
It is inherited from Latin merda (“dung, excrement”), written Old Galician-Portuguese merda in the medieval language. The same Latin word is Galician merda, Spanish mierda, Catalan merda, French…
merecer
It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *merēscō, an inchoative verb formed on mereō (“to earn; to deserve”). Houaiss describes the Vulgar Latin verb as a frequentative of the classical one. The oldest…
merenda
It is inherited from Latin merenda (“light afternoon meal”), written Old Galician-Portuguese merenda in the oldest texts. Houaiss gives the etymon as Medieval Latin, meaning an afternoon or evening…
mês
It is inherited from Latin mēnsis (“month”), written Old Galician-Portuguese mes in the oldest texts. The same Latin word is Galician mes, Spanish mes, Catalan mes, Occitan mes, French mois, Italian…
mesa
It is inherited from Latin mēnsa (“table”), already mēsa in spoken Latin, and written Old Galician-Portuguese mesa in the oldest texts. The same Latin word is Galician mesa, Spanish mesa, Catalan…
mesclar
It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *misculō (“to mix”), written Old Galician-Portuguese miscrar and Old Galician-Portuguese mezcrar in the oldest texts and Old Galician-Portuguese mezclar in the 14th…
mesmo
It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *metipsimus, written Old Galician-Portuguese meesmo in the oldest texts. The Vulgar Latin word is a superlative of metipse, which joins the emphatic particle -met…
messe
1. The word for the harvest is inherited from Latin messis (“reaping, harvest”), through its accusative. The same Latin word is Spanish mies, Italian messe, Old French mes and Old Occitan mes. The…
mestiço
It is inherited from Late Latin mixticius (“born of mixed race”), from mixtus (“mixed”), the past participle of misceō (“to mix”). Wiktionary analyses the Late Latin word as the participle with the…
mestre
It is inherited from Latin magister (“one who commands or directs; teacher”), written Old Galician-Portuguese maestre and Old Galician-Portuguese meestre in the oldest texts. Houaiss thinks the form…
metade
It is inherited from Late Latin medietās (“the middle; half”), a mainly Late Latin noun formed from medius (“middle; half”) with the suffix -tās. The oldest texts have the popular form Old…
meter
It is inherited from Latin mittō (“to let go, send, throw”), written Old Galician-Portuguese meter in the oldest texts. In Vulgar Latin the verb came to mean “to put in a place”, the sense that it…
meu
It is inherited from Latin meus (“my, mine”), written Old Galician-Portuguese meu in the oldest texts. The feminine minha comes from the Vulgar Latin form mia, for classical mea. Carolina Michaëlis…
mexer
It is inherited from Latin misceō (“to mix”), written Old Galician-Portuguese mecer in the oldest texts. Nascentes notes that the Portuguese ⟨x⟩ for the Latin group /sk/ is unusual: the two sounds…
mezinha
It is inherited from Latin medicīna (“the art of healing; remedy”), by the popular route, written Old Galician-Portuguese meezinha in the oldest texts. The learned medicina is its doublet. Nascentes…
mijar
It is inherited from Late Latin meiō (“to urinate”), the classical Latin verb moved from the third conjugation to the first. The oldest texts write Old Galician-Portuguese mejar and Old…
mil
It is inherited from Latin mīlle (“thousand”), written Old Galician-Portuguese mil in the oldest texts. The same Latin word is Spanish mil, Catalan mil, French mille and Italian mille; Romanian mie…