Portuguese words from Latin
2023 Portuguese words with Latin in their history, whether borrowed directly or passed on through other languages (page 9).
cujo
It is inherited from Latin cuius (“whose”), written Old Galician-Portuguese cujo in the oldest texts. The Latin word was a genitive of quī (“who, which”) used as an adjective with its own feminine…
culpa
It is borrowed from Latin culpa (“fault, offence, error”), taken over in its Latin form; Nascentes calls it a learned word and Wiktionary a learned borrowing. García de Diego sets a popular Old…
culpável
It is borrowed from Latin culpābilis (“blameworthy”), recorded from the 14th century. Wiktionary calls it a learned borrowing, Nascentes a semi-learned one; it can also be analysed as culpar with…
cultivação
It is formed from Portuguese cultivar + -ção. DELPo compares the English cultivation. The verb is from Medieval Latin cultīvō (“to till, cultivate”), first recorded in Portuguese about 1539. The…
cume
It is inherited from Latin culmen (“ridge of a roof; summit”). Houaiss calls it the popular counterpart of a learned borrowing of the same Latin word, and Nascentes thinks it came down by a…
cumprir
It is inherited from Latin compleō (“to fill up, complete”), written Old Galician-Portuguese comprir and Old Galician-Portuguese cumprir in the oldest texts. Wiktionary assumes a change of…
cunha
Houaiss calls the origin disputed. The usual view is that it is inherited from Vulgar Latin *cunea, a feminine form of cuneus (“wedge”), written Old Galician-Portuguese cuna in the oldest texts…
cunhado
It is inherited from Latin cognātus (“blood relative”), written Old Galician-Portuguese cunado and Old Galician-Portuguese cunnado in the oldest texts. In Latin the word meant a relative by blood…
cura
It is inherited from Latin cūra (“care; management; medical treatment”). The DLP treats the feminine noun, “healing”, as a back-formation from Portuguese curar and only the masculine “priest” as the…
curar
It is inherited from Latin cūrō (“to take care of, look after”), written Old Galician-Portuguese curar in the oldest texts. Houaiss glosses the Latin verb as “to care for, treat, watch over, clean”…
curioso
It is borrowed from Latin cūriōsus (“careful, diligent; inquisitive”), first recorded in the 14th century as Old Galician-Portuguese corioso. Nascentes calls it learned, while Wiktionary treats it…
curral
Its origin is uncertain. The word, written Old Galician-Portuguese curral in the oldest texts, is probably inherited from Vulgar Latin *currāle (“race-course; place where carts are kept”), from…
curto
It is inherited from Latin curtus (“docked, mutilated, broken”), written Old Galician-Portuguese curto and Old Galician-Portuguese corto in the oldest texts. The usual Latin word for “short” was…
cuspir
It is inherited from Latin cōnspuō (“to spit on”), written Old Galician-Portuguese cospir beside the modern spelling in the 13th century. Houaiss and Aurélio posit a Vulgar Latin infinitive in…
custar
It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *cōstāre, from cōnstō (“to stand firm; to be established; to cost”), written Old Galician-Portuguese custar and Old Galician-Portuguese costar in the oldest texts…
cutelo
It is inherited from Latin cultellus (“small knife”), written Old Galician-Portuguese cuitelo and Old Galician-Portuguese coitelo in the oldest texts. The Latin word is a diminutive of culter…
dado
1. The word for a die is inherited from Vulgar Latin *dadu, a form that the Romance words for “die” presuppose, and was written Old Galician-Portuguese dado in the oldest texts; its further origin…
danar
It is inherited from Latin damnō (“to condemn; to harm”), written Old Galician-Portuguese danar in the oldest texts. The Latin verb is formed from damnum (“loss, damage”). In Medieval Latin it meant…
dano
1. The word for damage is inherited from Latin damnum (“loss, expense”), written Old Galician-Portuguese dano in the oldest texts. The same Latin word is Galician dano, Spanish daño, Catalan dany…
dar
It is inherited from Latin dō (“to give”), written Old Galician-Portuguese dar in the oldest texts. The editor of the Ajuda songbook points out that the troubadours wrote the subjunctive dé, true to…
data
It is borrowed from Medieval Latin data (“given”), the feminine of datus, past participle of dō (“to give”). Medieval documents ended with a formula in which this participle, “given” (understood…
de
It is inherited from Latin dē (“from, down from”), written Old Galician-Portuguese de in the oldest texts. In Latin the preposition took the ablative and meant movement away from a point, “from…
decair
It is probably inherited from Vulgar Latin *dēcadō, a remaking of Latin dēcidō (“to fall down, fall off”) after the simple verb cadō (“to fall”), through a form Old Galician-Portuguese decaer. The…
decisão
It is a learned word, borrowed from Latin dēcīsiō (“a settlement; a decision”), the noun of the verb dēcīdō (“to cut off; to settle”). Houaiss takes it from French décision, recorded in French in…
declaração
It is borrowed from Latin dēclārātiō (“a making known, disclosure”), a learned word. Nascentes calls it semi-learned, and Houaiss analyses it as a Portuguese formation, from Portuguese declarar +…
declarar
It is borrowed from Latin dēclārō (“to make clear, make known”), written Old Galician-Portuguese declarar and Old Galician-Portuguese decrarar in the oldest texts. Nascentes takes it as a learned…
dedal
It is inherited from Late Latin digitāle (“finger-stall, thimble”), the neuter of Latin digitālis (“of the finger”), from digitus (“finger”) and the suffix -ālis. Du Cange's glossary records the…
dedo
It is inherited from Latin digitus (“finger, toe”), written Old Galician-Portuguese dedo in the oldest texts. The learned dígito is its doublet, taken later from the same Latin word. Nascentes…
defender
It is inherited from Latin dēfendō (“to ward off; to protect”), written Old Galician-Portuguese defender in the oldest texts. Nascentes counts it a learned word. The same Latin verb is Spanish…
defesa
It is inherited from Late Latin dēfēnsa (“defence”), written Old Galician-Portuguese defesa in the oldest texts. The Latin noun was formed on the stem of the past participle of dēfendō (“to ward…
deitar
It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *dēctō (“to throw down”), written Old Galician-Portuguese deitar in the oldest texts. Houaiss and Cunha find the contracted infinitive in the Medieval Latin of…
deixar
It is inherited from Latin laxō (“to widen, loosen; to let go”), whose medieval outcome was Old Galician-Portuguese leixar. In Medieval Latin the verb mostly meant “to let, leave”. The Latin verb is…
delicioso
It is borrowed from Late Latin dēliciōsus (“delightful”), a learned word. Lewis & Short mark the Latin adjective as late, from Augustine and later writers. It is formed from dēliciae (“delight…
delinquente
It is borrowed from Latin dēlinquēns (“failing, offending”), first recorded in 1444. The Latin word is the present participle of dēlinquō (“to be lacking, err”), from dē- and linquō (“to leave”)…
demais
Houaiss, Nascentes and the REW take it to be inherited from Latin demagis (“more”), a Late Latin adverb formed from dē and magis (“more”). Cunha, Aurélio and the DLP analyse it instead as a…
demandar
It is inherited from Latin dēmandō (“to entrust”), written Old Galician-Portuguese demandar and Old Galician-Portuguese demãdar in the oldest texts. The Latin verb is formed from dē- and mandō (“to…
demonstrar
It is borrowed from Latin dēmōnstrō (“to point out, show; to prove”), a learned word recorded from the 14th century. Beside it the medieval language had Old Galician-Portuguese demostrar, a popular…
demorar
It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *dēmorō, the active form that replaced Latin dēmoror (“to delay, keep waiting, linger”), written Old Galician-Portuguese demorar in the oldest texts. Nascentes…
dente
It is inherited from Latin dens (“tooth”), written Old Galician-Portuguese dente in the oldest texts. The same Latin word is Galician dente, Spanish diente, Catalan dent, Occitan dent, French dent…
dentro
It is inherited from Late Latin dē intrō (“from within”), a combination of the Latin preposition dē (“from”) with the adverb intrō (“inside, inwards”). Nascentes posits a Vulgar Latin *dentro…
depender
It is borrowed from Latin dēpendeō (“to hang down from; to depend on”), taken over by the learned route. The Latin verb is formed dē- + pendeō (“to hang, be suspended”). Seen from Portuguese, the…
depois
It is probably inherited from Late Latin depost (“behind; after”), a Late Latin compound of dē (“from”) and post (“after, behind”), but Houaiss calls the origin controversial. The objections are the…
depor
It is inherited from Latin dēpōnō (“to lay down, put aside”), first recorded as Old Galician-Portuguese despoer in the 14th century and as Old Galician-Portuguese depoer in the 15th, while the…
derrubar
It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *dērūpō (“to throw down from a rock”), a verb formed on rūpēs (“rock, cliff”). Cunha and the DLP name instead the Medieval Latin verb dirupō, which Du Cange records…
descalçar
It is inherited from Late Latin discalceō (“to take the shoes off”), written Old Galician-Portuguese descalçar in the oldest texts. The Latin verb is formed from dis- and calceō (“to put shoes on”)…
descalço
It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *discalceus (“barefoot”), written Old Galician-Portuguese descalço in the oldest texts. Houaiss and the DLP take the Vulgar Latin adjective as a shortening of Latin…
descarregar
It is inherited from Late Latin discarricō (“to unload”), written Old Galician-Portuguese descaregar in 1228. Houaiss calls the Latin verb medieval and formed in parallel with the Late Latin carricō…
descartar
It is formed from Portuguese des- + carta + -ar, literally “to take cards out (of one's hand)”. The noun, meaning “letter; playing card”, is from Latin charta, an early Latin borrowing of Ancient…
descer
It is most probably inherited from Latin dēscendō (“to come down”), the popular form beside the learned descender. Houaiss explains that both forms at first ran side by side, and that the popular…
descobrir
It is inherited from Late Latin discooperiō (“to uncover, lay bare”), written Old Galician-Portuguese descobrir in the oldest texts. The Late Latin verb is formed from dis- and cooperiō (“to cover…
descrever
It is borrowed from Latin dēscrībō (“to copy; to draw, mark out; to describe”), first recorded in 1436. Wiktionary calls it a learned borrowing. The Latin verb is formed from dē- and scrībō (“to…
desdenhar
It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *disdignō, written Old Galician-Portuguese desdennar in the oldest texts, a reshaping with the prefix dis- of Latin dēdignor (“to reject as unworthy, disdain”). The…
desejo
It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *dēsedium (“desire”), written Old Galician-Portuguese desejo in the oldest texts: Houaiss, Cunha and the REW reconstruct the Vulgar Latin noun so, while Corominas…
desenhar
It is borrowed from Latin dēsignō (“to mark out, trace, designate”), with the influence of disegnare, according to Houaiss. Nascentes and Aurélio derive it from the Italian verb alone, as does the…
desertar
It is borrowed from French déserter according to Cunha, Aurélio, Priberam, the DLP and the Porto dictionary, and the French verb is from Late Latin dēsertō (“to abandon”), the frequentative of Latin…
deserto
It is inherited from Latin dēsertus (“abandoned, deserted”), the past participle of dēserō (“to abandon, to forsake”), already used in Latin as a noun in the neuter dēsertum (“desert, wilderness”)…
deslocar
Houaiss and Priberam analyse it as from Portuguese des- + locar, the second part coming from Latin locō (“to place”), from locus (“place”). Wiktionary instead sees the whole verb as borrowed from…
despeito
It is inherited from Latin dēspectus (“a looking down; contempt”), written Old Galician-Portuguese despeito in the oldest texts. The Latin noun comes from the supine of dēspiciō (“to look down on…
despir
It is inherited from Latin expediō (“to free from fastenings, disentangle”), through the older Old Galician-Portuguese espir, with the prefix ⟨ex-⟩ replaced by des-. The form without ⟨d-⟩ is…
destino
It is a back-formation from Portuguese destinar (“to destine, decide”). The verb is from Latin dēstinō (“to fix, make fast; to determine, resolve”), recorded from 1539 in a participle. The Latin…