portar

Forms

portar (first-person singular present porto, first-person singular preterite porté, past participle portado)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin portō (“to carry, convey”), but Corominas calls it a foreign word that Spanish took at several periods, from Latin as well as the neighbouring Romance languages: Catalan portar, French porter and Italian portare.^[2][1] The DLE derives it simply from the Latin verb.^[3] The same Latin word is Portuguese portar, Galician portar and Romanian purta.^[4][5]

The Latin verb meant first “to take across, transport”, and in Latin it gradually took the place of ferō and gerō as the ordinary word for “to carry”, because it was more concrete and had regular forms.^[6] De Vaan reconstructs *portā- and takes the verb as probably formed from a noun *por-to- (“passage, crossing”), of the root *per- (“to cross, go through”); he rejects the older view of a frequentative of an o-grade causative.^[7] Latin porta (“gate”) and portus (“harbour”) belong to the same root.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates the verb to 1220–50, the time of Gonzalo de Berceo.^[2][8] In stanza 852 of Berceo's Milagros de Nuestra Señora it is used of Moses carrying the Law, in the sense “to carry, bear”.^[9] The CDH's earlier hits under the lemma are Latin charters and the noun porte, not the verb.^[10] The Old Spanish Textual Archive first has it in a text of 1289.^[11]

Semantic evolution

The Diccionario de Autoridades defined portar as “to carry or bring” and called it a word of Galicia and Asturias.^[12] The Academy's dictionaries of 1817 to 1899 marked the transitive sense as obsolete.^[13][14][15] Meanwhile the reflexive portarse “to behave (well or badly)”, recorded from the early 17th century, became the common use; the Academy added it in 1843, with a second sense of keeping up a fine appearance in one's dress and house.^[2][16] An early record from the Americas is a 1593 text from Sinaloa: las doncellas se portan con toda modestia “the maidens behave with all modesty”.^[17]

The transitive verb lived on in the Americas: Santamaría describes portar in Mexico as carrying something on one's person and calls this use antiquated in Spain, and in Argentine law it means to carry a firearm ready for use.^[18][19] Today the DLE gives it without an obsolete label, and Vox marks it as formal, as in portar armas.^[3][20] Nautical portar is said of a sail that fills with the wind.^[3][21]

Timeline

• 1220–1250 – first recorded, in Berceo.^[2][9]
• 1289 – the first occurrence in the Old Spanish Textual Archive.^[11]
• early 17th century – the reflexive portarse “to behave” is recorded.^[2]
• 1593 – portarse in a text from Sinaloa, Mexico.^[17]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades calls portar a word of Galicia and Asturias.^[12]
• 1817 – the Academy marks the transitive verb as obsolete.^[13]
• 1843 – the Academy adds the reflexive senses.^[16]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology, Latin portare.^[14]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive, formal) To have something with one or on one: to carry, bear or wear: Los soldados portaban fusiles.^[3][20][1]
2. (transitive) To carry or take something from one place to another.^[3]
3. (transitive, hunting) Of a dog: to bring the shot game to the hunter.^[3][22]
4. (reflexive) To behave or act in a certain way: Mi sobrino se portó muy bien en la boda.^[3][1]
5. (reflexive, colloquial) To do especially well in a situation; to come up to expectations.^[3][22]
6. (intransitive, nautical) Of a sail or rigging: to be filled by the wind.^[3]

Word family

• portador
• portadera
• portante
• portátil
• porte
• portear
• portaaviones
• portamonedas
• portavoz
• portaplumas

Related words

• comportar
• importar
• exportar
• soportar
• transportar
• aportar
• puerta
• puerto
• Latin portō

Usage notes

Portarse bien and portarse mal “to behave well, badly” are the most frequent uses; in nautical language portar bien is said of a sail that fills evenly, without folds.^[3][22]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. portar
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. portar
4. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6673
5. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. portar
6. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
7. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2014), Lexicón etimológico y semántico del latín y de las voces actuales que proceden de raíces latinas o griegas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 594
9. ^ a b Lanchetas, Rufino (1900), Gramática y vocabulario de las obras de Gonzalo de Berceo, Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra, p. 596
10. ^ Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. portar
11. ^ a b Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (2026), Old Spanish Textual Archive (OSTA): semi-paleographic transcriptions of Old Spanish texts, ed. Francisco Gago Jover et al., https://www.hispanicseminary.org
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 331
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 691
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 851
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 799
16. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 578
17. ^ a b Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, p. s.v. portar
18. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1959), Diccionario de mejicanismos, México: Porrúa, p. 883
19. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. portar
20. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. portar
21. ^ Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 1355
22. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. portar