<b>What is a parasite? An etymological and semantical analysis of the term parasite in different languages</b> - DOI: 10.4025/actascihumansoc.v29i2.824

Abstract

Linking semantics to ethnobiological research, this article undertook an etymological and semasiological descriptive analysis of the term parasite and its derivatives, describing their meaning in dictionary of six languages.Thirty-eight dictionaries were surveyed, from the collection of the Central Library at the Universidade de Brasília and Goethe-Zentrum Brasília. Etymologically, parasite comes from the Greek παράσιτος, parásîtos (from pará, beside, next to + sîtos, food), and can mean “that which eats beside another”. The analysis of the lexeme parasite in the surveyed dictionaries reveals a great variety of meanings, including the biological and connotative (social, religious, and physical), some of which are unique to each language. Thirty-five synonyms were recorded. Most of them are in Portuguese. The biological definition of the lexeme parasite was the most predominant meaning in the analyzed dictionaries in all languages, but the most complete definition comes from French and English. Amongst the connotative meanings, the social one was the most frequent. It refers both to the human behavior of eating at someone’s house, as well as financial dependency. It was also noted that the French, German, Italian and English dictionaries present more variety of meanings than the Portuguese and Spanish ones, which must reflect cultural differences related to the perception of parasites. This study indicates that the biological definitions of the lexeme parasite should be reviewed in future editions of most of the surveyed dictionaries.