almafi

Old Galician-Portuguese

Alternative forms

• almafil, almofi, ammafide, marfi, marfil, marfim, marfym, olmafi

Etymology

Borrowed from Arabic عَظْم اَلْفِيل (ʕaẓm al-fīl, “elephant-bone”), from عَظْم (ʕaẓm, “bone”) + فِيل (fīl, “elephant”).

Cognate with Old Spanish almalfil.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /al.maˈfi/
• Rhymes: -i
• Hyphenation: al‧ma‧fi

Noun

almafi m (uncountable)

1. ivory (hard white form of dentin which forms the tusks of elephants)
   • a. 1284, Alfonso X of Castile, Cantigas de Santa Maria, Códice de los músicos, cantiga 299 (facsimile):

     Un freire dos da eſtrela tragia.
     a ſeu colo en que muito crija
     hũa omagen deſta que nos guia
     dalmafi que ſeu fill en braços tẽ
     De muitas maneiras ſc̃a maria

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

Descendants

• Galician: marfil, almafí
• Portuguese: marfim

References

• Ernesto Xosé González Seoane, María Álvarez de la Granja, Ana Isabel Boullón Agrelo (2006–2022) “marfil”, in Dicionario de Dicionarios do galego medieval (in Galician), Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega
• Xavier Varela Barreiro, Xavier Gómez Guinovart (2006–2018) “almafi”, in Corpus Xelmírez - Corpus lingüístico da Galicia medieval (in Galician), Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega