Portuguese words from Latin
2023 Portuguese words with Latin in their history, whether borrowed directly or passed on through other languages (page 20).
milagre
It is inherited from Latin mīrāculum (“a marvel, a wonder”), written Old Galician-Portuguese miragre in the oldest texts. Wiktionary calls it a semi-learned word. The Latin noun is formed from mīror…
milheiro
1. The word for a thousand is inherited from Latin milliarius (“containing a thousand”), or its neuter milliārium “a number of a thousand”. The adjective is formed on mīlle (“thousand”) with the…
milho
It is inherited from Latin milium (“millet”), written Old Galician-Portuguese milho and Old Galician-Portuguese millo in the oldest texts. The Portuguese, Spanish and Catalan forms point to Vulgar…
militar
1. The word for the adjective “military” is borrowed from Latin mīlitāris (“of soldiers, military”), formed from mīles (“soldier”) with the suffix -āris. Nascentes and Aurélio derive the adjective…
ministro
It is borrowed from Latin minister (“servant, attendant”), taken as a learned word through the Latin accusative. Nascentes notes that the word has risen in meaning from “servant”. The same Latin…
minúsculo
It is a learned borrowing, borrowed from Latin minusculus (“rather small”), a diminutive of minor (“smaller, lesser”). The Latin adjective is built with the suffix -culus on the old s-stem seen in…
miraculoso
It is borrowed from Latin mīrāculōsus (“marvellous, miraculous”), a learned word. Niermeyer records the Latin adjective in medieval texts. Cunha takes it instead as an adaptation of French…
mirar
It is inherited from Latin mīrāre (“to wonder at”), the active form that popular Latin used for the deponent mīrārī. It is written Old Galician-Portuguese mirar in the cantigas. Vieira derived it…
missa
It is borrowed from Ecclesiastical Latin missa (“dismissal, Mass”), written Old Galician-Portuguese missa in the oldest texts. The Latin noun is the feminine of missus, past participle of mittō (“to…
missão
It is inherited from Latin missiō (“a sending, dispatch; release”), written Old Galician-Portuguese misson in the oldest texts. Nascentes considers it semi-learned. The Latin noun is formed from…
misturar
It is formed from Portuguese mistura + -ar, and was Old Galician-Portuguese mesturar in the oldest texts. The noun, earlier Old Galician-Portuguese mestura, is from Latin mīxtūra (“a mixing”), from…
miúdo
It is inherited from Latin minūtus (“diminished; small”), written Old Galician-Portuguese mẽudo in the oldest texts and later Old Galician-Portuguese miudo. The Latin word is the past participle of…
modo
It is borrowed from Latin modus (“measure; limit; manner”), a learned word. Houaiss dates it to the 14th century and Cunha to the 15th. García de Diego calls it a learned word in both Castilian and…
moeda
It is inherited from Latin monēta (“coin; mint”), written Old Galician-Portuguese moeda in the oldest texts. The same Latin word is Galician moeda, Spanish moneda, Catalan moneda, Occitan moneda…
moer
It is inherited from Latin molō (“to grind in a mill”), written Old Galician-Portuguese moer in the oldest texts. The same Latin word is Galician moer, Spanish moler, Catalan moldre, Occitan molre…
moinho
It is inherited from Late Latin molīnum (“mill”), which Houaiss explains as short for Late Latin saxum molīnum (“grinding stone”). García de Diego cites molinum saxum from Tertullian and molinae…
moio
It is inherited from Latin modius (“a dry measure, peck”), written Old Galician-Portuguese moyo in the oldest texts. The DDGM's glossary of the Crónica Geral gives the same etymon and follows the…
moleiro
It is inherited from Late Latin molinārius (“miller”), the adjective used as a noun, first written Old Galician-Portuguese molneiro. The Latin word was formed on molīna (“mill”), from mola…
molhar
It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *molliō (“to soften”), written Old Galician-Portuguese mollar in the oldest texts. Houaiss explains the Vulgar Latin verb as “to soften bread by dipping it in a…
momento
It is borrowed from Latin mōmentum (“movement, impulse; weight that tips a balance; short space of time”), recorded from the 15th century. Nascentes counts it among the learned words. The Latin noun…
monarquia
It is borrowed from Latin monarchia (“absolute rule, monarchy”), from Ancient Greek μοναρχία (monarkhía, “rule by one person”). Nascentes and Aurélio note that it came by the learned route. The…
monco
It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *muccus (“snot”), a variant of Latin mūcus (“mucus, snot”). Nascentes and Houaiss explain the ⟨n⟩ as the nasality of the initial ⟨m⟩ carried on into the first…
monstro
It is borrowed from Latin mōnstrum (“portent, prodigy; monster”), a learned word. In Latin it was a word of religion: a supernatural sign that announced the will of the gods, and hence a being or…
montanha
It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *montanea (“mountain region”), written Old Galician-Portuguese montanna in the oldest texts. Houaiss explains the Late Latin noun as the feminine of an adjective…
montar
Houaiss and Wiktionary take it as borrowed from Old French monter (“to go up”), which is from Vulgar Latin *montō (“to climb”), a verb formed on Latin mōns (“mountain”). Cunha, Aurélio and Michaelis…
monte
It is inherited from Latin mōns (“mountain, hill”), written Old Galician-Portuguese monte in the oldest texts. The same Latin word is Galician monte, Spanish monte, Catalan mont, French mont…
moral
It is borrowed from Latin mōrālis (“relating to customs or conduct, moral”). Houaiss sees a probable influence of French morale on the philosophical term, and Cunha derives the feminine noun “body…
morder
It is inherited from Latin mordeō (“to bite”), written Old Galician-Portuguese morder in the oldest texts. The same Latin verb is Galician morder, Spanish morder, Catalan morder, French mordre and…
morrer
It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *morĕre (“to die”), an active infinitive that spoken Latin used instead of the classical deponent Latin morī; the oldest texts write Old Galician-Portuguese morrer…
mortal
It is inherited from Latin mortālis (“subject to death, mortal”), written Old Galician-Portuguese mortal in the oldest texts. The Latin adjective is formed mors (“death”) with the suffix -ālis…
morte
It is inherited from Latin mors (“death”), written Old Galician-Portuguese morte in the oldest texts. The same Latin word is Galician morte, Spanish muerte, Catalan mort, French mort, Italian morte…
morteiro
1. The word for the mortar vessel is inherited from Latin mortārium (“bowl or trough for pounding, mortar”), Houaiss says, with the influence of Italian mortaro. Cunha and Aurélio take it as an…
morto
It is inherited from Latin mortuus (“dead”), the past participle of morior (“to die”), written Old Galician-Portuguese morto in the oldest texts. Nascentes, following Meyer-Lübke, explains the form…
mosca
It is inherited from Latin musca (“fly”), written Old Galician-Portuguese mosca in the oldest texts. The same Latin word is Galician mosca, Spanish mosca, Catalan mosca, Occitan mosca, French…
mosteiro
It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *monistērium, a popular form of Late Latin monastērium (“monastery”), written Old Galician-Portuguese moesteiro in the oldest texts, also with a nasal tilde. The…
mosto
It is inherited from Latin mustum (“unfermented grape juice, new wine”), the neuter of the adjective mustus (“fresh, young”) used as a noun. The same Latin word is Galician mosto, Spanish mosto…
mostrar
It is inherited from Latin mōnstrō (“to point out, show”), written Old Galician-Portuguese mostrar in the oldest texts. Nascentes derives it from the Latin form without /n/, ⟨mostrare⟩; the OLD…
mote
It is borrowed from Old Occitan mot (“word, short saying”), or the French mot, which is recorded from the 10th century. The Occitan and French word continues Late Latin muttum (“a sound, a mutter”)…
motivo
It is borrowed from Late Latin mōtīvus (“relating to movement, moving”), an adjective that Medieval Latin already used as a noun, mōtīvum (“motive, reason”). The Latin adjective is formed from mōtus…
mouro
It is inherited from Latin Maurus (“Moor, Moorish”), written Old Galician-Portuguese mouro in the oldest texts. Houaiss derives the noun from the plural Mauri (“the Moors, the people of Mauretania”)…
móvel
It is inherited from Latin mōbilis (“movable”), written Old Galician-Portuguese mouil and Old Galician-Portuguese movil in the oldest texts. Houaiss and Wiktionary set it beside móbil, the learned…
mover
It is inherited from Latin moveō (“to set in motion, move”), written Old Galician-Portuguese mover in the oldest texts. The same Latin verb is Galician mover, Spanish mover, Catalan moure, French…
mudar
It is inherited from Latin mūtō (“to change; to move”), through the popular language. mutar is its learned doublet. The same Latin word is Galician mudar, Spanish mudar, Catalan mudar, Occitan…
mudo
It is inherited from Latin mūtus (“dumb, speechless”), written Old Galician-Portuguese mudo in the oldest texts. Houaiss dates the adjective to the 13th century and its use as a noun to the 15th…
muito
It is inherited from Latin multus (“much, many”), written Old Galician-Portuguese muito and Old Galician-Portuguese moito in the oldest texts. The adverb continues the neuter multum, as the…
mulher
It is inherited from Latin mulier (“woman”), written Old Galician-Portuguese molier, Old Galician-Portuguese muller and Old Galician-Portuguese molher in the oldest texts. The Latin word was taken…
multidão
It is inherited from Latin multitūdō (“great number, multitude”), in a semi-learned form: Nascentes and Aurélio derive it through the archaic Old Galician-Portuguese multidõe and multidom. Nascentes…
mundo
It is inherited from Latin mundus (“world”), written Old Galician-Portuguese mundo in the oldest texts. Corominas notes that the Portuguese and Spanish word is semi-learned: a popular Old Spanish…
mungir
It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *mulgiō, a fourth-conjugation remake of Latin mulgeō (“to milk”). Cunha and Nascentes place a stage Old Galician-Portuguese *muigir between the two, with the /l/…
munição
It is borrowed from Latin mūnītiō (“the building of fortifications; a defence work”). Nascentes calls it semi-learned; Wiktionary also notes the analysis munir + -ção. The same Latin word gave…
muro
It is inherited from Latin mūrus (“wall, city wall”), written Old Galician-Portuguese muro in the oldest texts. The Galician-Portuguese word kept the Latin sense of a defensive wall, as in Spanish…
musgo
It is inherited from Latin muscus (“moss”), written Old Galician-Portuguese musgo in the oldest texts. To explain the /g/, Nascentes proposes an epenthetic form *musico, compare the popular musga…
música
It is borrowed from Latin mūsica (“music”), from Ancient Greek μουσική (mousikḗ), short for “the art of the Muses”, from μουσικός (mousikós, “of the Muses; musical”), from Μοῦσα (Moûsa, “Muse”)…
nabo
It is inherited from Latin nāpus (“turnip”), written Old Galician-Portuguese nabo in the oldest texts. The same Latin word is Galician nabo, Spanish nabo, Catalan nap, Italian napo, Romanian nap and…
nação
It is borrowed from Latin nātiō (“birth; race, people”), by a semi-learned route, written Old Galician-Portuguese naçon in the oldest texts. The same Latin word is Spanish nación, Galician nazon and…
nada
It is inherited from Late Latin nāta (“born”), the feminine participle in the Late Latin phrase rēs nāta (“a thing born”), written Old Galician-Portuguese nada in the oldest texts. Classical Latin…
nadar
It is inherited from Latin natō (“to swim, float”), already Old Galician-Portuguese nadar in the oldest texts. The Latin verb is a frequentative formed from nō (“to swim”). The same Latin verb is…
namorar
It is an aphaeretic form from Portuguese enamorar, with the first syllable dropped. The fuller verb is a parasynthetic formation from the preposition em, the noun for “love” and the verb ending -ar…
não
It is inherited from Latin nōn (“not”), written Old Galician-Portuguese non in the oldest texts. The same Latin word is Galician non, Spanish no, Catalan no, French non, Italian non and Romanian nu…
nariz
It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *nārīca (“nostril”), written Old Galician-Portuguese nariz in the oldest texts. The Vulgar Latin word, usually in the plural *nārīcae, is explained in the DDGM and…