Beer and brewing

The sixth entry is a fervura do mosto, and the first noun rests on a Latin verb that English owns without ever putting it under a pan. Fervere meant to boil, to seethe, to glow, and Portuguese kept it whole: ferver is what water does on the stove, what a kettle does at breakfast and — with no change of word at all — what a person does with rage, ferver de raiva. English took the very same verb, but only in its Sunday clothes. « Fervent » and « fervour » describe feeling and nothing else; « fervid » belongs to a preacher and never to a saucepan; « effervescent » went off to the chemist and the wine merchant. For the pan itself English reached for a second Latin verb, bullire, to bubble, which came in through French and gave « boil ». So two languages split one kitchen between two verbs and did it in opposite directions. The practical consequence on this page is small and worth having: a fervura is the boil, an hour of it, and nothing about it is enthusiastic.