llevar

Forms

llevar (first-person singular present llevo, first-person singular preterite lleví, past participle llevat); root stress: (Northern) /e̞/, (Balearic, Central, Northwestern, Valencia) /e/^[1] Old Catalan wrote levar, with a single ⟨l⟩.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Catalan levar, which is inherited from Latin levō (“to lighten; to raise; to relieve”).^{[4][5][6][7][1]} The Latin verb was made from levis (“light, not heavy”), the source of Catalan lleu.^[1][4] The adjective is an old Indo-European word, with cognates in Greek, Sanskrit and Gothic.^[4]

The verb is common to all the Romance languages, though they favoured different senses of it: Occitan levar, Spanish llevar, Portuguese levar, French lever, Italian levare, Romanian lua.^[4][1] The DCVB notes that most of its Romance senses are already Latin, and that one group of them seems to have developed in the Latin of the Iberian Peninsula: Spanish kept it, while modern Catalan has lost it.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Coromines finds the verb first in a parchment of 1168 from the Vallespir, half Catalan and half disguised Latin, in which the abbot of Arles grants a fief at Costoja and lists its dues: it speaks of una levada de porc and of the tax collector quando levavit aream, when he collected from the threshing floor.^[4] The first sense is thus “to levy, collect” a due.^[4][7]

Semantic evolution

In the oldest texts levar means to lift and to rise, and also to carry off or take away: a document of the early 13th century from Aiguatèbia says that a man levà eighteen cows, and in Llull's Blanquerna a shepherd hides a woman he avia levada from her husband.^[4] Llull also uses it of the earth bearing fruit (1272); Marsili's chronicle (1314) has galleys raising their anchors;^[6] Muntaner (1325) has soldiers starting hares; the Corbatxo (1397) has bread left to rise too long; the Curial (about 1440) has men who “raise” slanders against women.^[2]

Bruguera dates allevar “to impute falsely” to 1272, lleva to 1359, llevador to 1385 and llevant “east” to Desclot.^[6] The dictionaries of 1803 and 1839 put first “to take away, dispossess”.^[8][9] Coromines regrets that in the Principality llevar is being confused with treure; he cites Careta, who preferred llevar-se el barret “to take off one's hat”.^[4]

Timeline

• 1168 – levavit and levada in a parchment from the Vallespir.^[4][7]
• early 13th century – levà “carried off” in a document from Aiguatèbia.^[4]
• 1272 – Llull uses leva of the earth bearing fruit.^[2]
• 1314 – galleys levassen las ancoras in Marsili's chronicle.^[2]
• 1325 – Muntaner's soldiers llevaren two or three hares.^[2]
• 1397 – lavar lo pa, of bread rising, in the Corbatxo.^[2]
• 1575 – Onofre Pou glosses llevar-se lo barret.^[4]
• 1932 – Fabra gives “to separate a thing from what it is attached to” as the first sense.^[10]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To remove, to take off a thing from what it is attached to or part of: Llevem la pell a les patates.^[11][1]
2. (transitive, by extension) To take away, deprive of: Aquell soroll em llevava el son.^[11]
3. (transitive, nautical) To weigh an anchor; to haul in fishing gear that was set.^[11][5]
4. (transitive) To get someone out of bed;^[1] (pronominal) to get up: Diumenge em llevaré tard.^[7][1]
5. (transitive) Of a plant or land, to yield fruit.^[7][5]
6. (intransitive) Of dough, to rise in fermenting.^[7][5]
7. (transitive, figurative) To impute falsely, like allevar.^[7][2]
8. (obsolete) To raise, to lift;^[12] (pronominal) to rise.^[7][5]

Word family

• allevar
• lleva
• llevada
• llevadís
• llevador
• llevant
• llevat
• llevataps
• rellevar

Related words

• lleu
• Latin levō
• Spanish llevar
• French lever

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Faraudo de Saint-Germain, Lluís, Vocabulari de la llengua catalana medieval, online edition, Barcelona: Institut d'Estudis Catalans, p. s.v. llevar
3. ^ Nou glossari general lul·lià (NGGL), Centre de Documentació Ramon Llull, Universitat de Barcelona, https://nggl.ub.edu, p. s.v. llevar
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Coromines, Joan (1980–2001), Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana, 10 vols., Barcelona: Curial / La Caixa (online ed., Institut d'Estudis Catalans 2024), p. 5, 180
5. ^ a b c d e f Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. llevar
6. ^ a b c Bruguera, Jordi (1996), Diccionari etimològic, Barcelona: Enciclopèdia Catalana, p. 542
7. ^ a b c d e f g h Enciclopèdia Catalana, Gran diccionari de la llengua catalana (GDLC), Barcelona: Enciclopèdia Catalana; online edition, https://www.diccionari.cat, p. s.v. llevar
8. ^ Esteve, Joaquim; Bellvitges, Josep; Juglà, Antoni (1803–1805), Diccionario catalán-castellano-latino, 2 vols., Barcelona, p. s.v. llevar
9. ^ Labèrnia, Pere (1839–1840), Diccionari de la llengua catalana ab la correspondencia castellana y llatina, 2 vols., Barcelona, p. s.v. llevar
10. ^ Fabra, Pompeu (1932), Diccionari general de la llengua catalana, Barcelona: Llibreria Catalònia, p. s.v. llevar
11. ^ a b c Institut d'Estudis Catalans (2007), Diccionari de la llengua catalana, 2nd ed. (DIEC2), Barcelona: Edicions 62; online edition with later updates, https://dlc.iec.cat, p. s.v. llevar
12. ^ Coromines, Joan (1980–2001), Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana, 10 vols., Barcelona: Curial / La Caixa (online ed., Institut d'Estudis Catalans 2024), p. 4, 226