boitatá
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Portuguese[edit]
Alternative forms[edit]
Etymology[edit]
From Old Tupi mba'etatá (“will o' the wisp”, literally “fire thing”). Because of the similarity, the etymology would be later reanalyzed as mboîtatá (literally “fire snake”), thus giving origin to the modern myth in Brazilian folklore of a fire serpent.[1]
Pronunciation[edit]
- Rhymes: -a
- Hyphenation: boi‧ta‧tá
Proper noun[edit]
boitatá m (plural boitatás)
- (Brazil, folklore) term used to designate the will o' the wisp phenomenon and, from this deriving, some mythical entities
References[edit]
- ^ Eduardo de Almeida Navarro (2013) Dicionário de tupi antigo: a língua indígena clássica do Brasil[1] (in Portuguese), São Paulo: Global, →ISBN