femea

Old Galician-Portuguese

Alternative forms

• femẽa

Etymology

Inherited from Latin fēmina (“woman, wife, female”), from Proto-Italic *fēmanā, from Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁-m̥n-eh₂ (“(f.) one who is sucked; one who suckles”), derivation of the verbal root *dʰeh₁(y)- (“to suck, suckle”).

Cognate with Old Spanish femna.

Adjective

femea m or f (plural femeas)

1. female

   Coordinate term: macho

   • 1390, anonymous author, Miragres de Santiago; republished as José Luís Pensado Tomé, editor, Os Miragres de Santiago. Versión gallega del Códice latino del siglo XII atribuido al papa Calisto I, Madrid, 1958, page 4:

     O señor de hũ castelo que eu ora teno ouve dous fillos, et hũu era varõ et o outro era femea; et esta que era femea casou cõ hũu caualeiro […]

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

Noun

femea f (plural femeas)

1. female

   Coordinate term: macho

Descendants

• Galician: femia, fema, fémea
• Portuguese: fêmeo, fêmea (see there for further descendants)

References

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