souriço

Old Galician-Portuguese

Etymology

Conceivably from Late Latin salsīcium (“prepared with salt”).^[1] If so, the replacement of the second /s/ with /ɾ/ could perhaps have resulted from dissimilation from the first /s/ or from contamination with Proto-West Germanic *sauʀ- “dry” (chorizo being a cured meat and all). Alternatively, perhaps derived from *sauʀ- to begin with, suffixed with -īcium > -iço.

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): /sowˈɾit͡so/

Noun

souriço m (plural souriços)

chorizo (type of sausage)
- 13th c., Fernão Garcia de Sousa, cantiga de escárnio:
  Non acharedes, en toda Castela, / graças a Deus, de que mi agora praz, / melhor ventrulho nen melhor morcela / do que a ama con sa mão faz; / e al faz ben, como diz seu marido; / faz bon souriç' e lava ben transsido / e deita ben galinha choca assaz.
  You won't find in all of Castile – thank God for how she delights me – any better sausage of tripe, nor any of blood, than the one that the maid makes by hand. She's good at other things too, as her husband reports: she's good at making chorizo [...]

Descendants

Galician: chourizo
Portuguese: chouriço
- → English: chouriço
- → Spanish: chorizo (or borrowed from Galician) (see there for further descendants)

References

^ Roberts, Edward A. (2014) A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Spanish Language with Families of Words based on Indo-European Roots, Xlibris Corporation, →ISBN