The story
- Latin · derived fromoctāvus“eighth”
- Old Galician-Portuguese · derived fromoitavo
- Portuguese · borrowed fromoitava
- English todayoitava
From Portuguese oitava, from Old Galician-Portuguese oitavo, from Latin octāvus (“eighth”), q.v., in reference to it making up one-eighth of the alqueire (Portuguese bushel) or onça (Portuguese ounce). Doublet of octave, octavo, and ochava.
Words from the same roots
Latinoctāvus all →
octaveochava
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.