Poulo
A Coruña · La CoruñaGalicia
Substantivised Galician appellative. Poulo or poula designates in rural Galician a fallow land or poor pasture, generally abandoned to natural regeneration. The etymology is disputed: the most sustained readings derive it from the Latin paulum ('small, modest') or from a pre-Roman base pol-/paul- linked to communal pastures.
Poulo and its feminine variant poula are living appellatives of rural Galician that specifically designate marginal lands: poor communal pastures, abandoned holdings in regeneration, fallow lands without active agricultural use. The word has parallels in Portuguese (pousio, long fallow) and in archaic Castilian (pozal, in some dialects). Contemporary Galician onomastics debates its origin: the Latin reading proposes derivation from paulum ('small, modest, scarce'), applied to parcels of little agricultural value; the pre-Roman reading appeals to a base pol-/paul- present in other northwestern toponyms linked to communal pastures and bare hills. A third reading, minoritarian, connects it with Latin paludem ('marsh, fen'), discarded because the phonetics do not fit. The hamlet of Poulo belongs to the Ordes council, on the Camino Inglés branch from A Coruña before converging at Hospital de Bruma. The parish church of Santa María, modest, marks the hamlet. The toponym is one of the most characteristic of the Galician geographical lexicon and appears repeated in dozens of hamlets and places.
Evolution of the name
- paulum / pol- Latin / pre-Roman before the 9th century
- Poulo medieval Galician from the 12th century
Glossary
- Etymology
- The origin and history of a word and the phonetic and semantic changes it has undergone. An etymology may be confirmed, probable or disputed depending on documentary attestations and linguistic parallels.
- Onomastics
- The linguistic discipline that studies proper names — of persons, places and institutions. "Onomastic readings" are competing etymological hypotheses about a name.
- Poulo / poula
- Galician and Portuguese word for fallow land, poor communal pasture or holding abandoned to natural regeneration. A central concept of the Galician-Portuguese rural lexicon: a land that has returned to scrub, opposed to the leira (cultivated parcel) and the souto (riverside forest).
Sources
- Navaza, G. — Toponimia de Galicia
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Camino Inglés