Xícara: do nauátle ao português

Abstract

This article aims to make a brief survey of the available information about the word xícara (“cup”) in order to learn its origin and the way that the word has come to be adopted in Brazilian Portuguese to designate the container used to serve normally hot drinks, like tea or coffee. Therefore, we consulted Portuguese and Spanish dictionaries, in addition to ones in both languages and in Italian, and texts about Nahuatl culture and language. We also consulted Portuguese and Spanish corpora available on the Web. As a result, it was possible to learn more about the word xícara, but a lot of important information is still missing, opening precedent for further research on the subject. Although we have not achieved all the desired data, we conclude that the search for the origin and etymology of xícara is certainly an exercise that increases knowledge not only of language but also of cultural aspects of different people.