Etymologically
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portare

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Pronunciation

  • /porˈta.re/[1]

Forms

portare (first-person singular present pòrto, first-person singular past historic portài, past participle portàto, auxiliary avére)[1] Old Italian also had puortare, and the past participle could be the short porto.[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin portō (“to carry, convey”).[3][4][5][1] The Latin verb is related to porta (“gate”), whose first sense was “passage”, and to portus (“harbour”): Nocentini and DEI give it the early senses “to make pass” and “to bring into port”, from which “to carry” developed, and in Latin it came to stand beside ferō and gerō as a general word for carrying.[3][4][6][2][7] The verb is pan-Romance: French porter, Occitan portar, Catalan portar, Spanish portar, Portuguese portar and Romanian purta.[4][8] DÉRom reconstructs a Proto-Romance verb meaning “to bear, carry; to carry in the womb; to wear; to bring”, found in every branch except Sardinian.[9]

The root is Proto-Indo-European *per- (“to cross, pass through”), which Nocentini also finds in Ancient Greek πείρω (peírō, “to pierce through”).[4][1] De Vaan takes ⟨porta⟩ as an old participle “crossed” and the verb as probably derived from it, and ⟨portus⟩ as a noun “crossing”, akin to Avestan pərətu- (“crossing, bridge”) and Old High German furt (“ford”).[10]

Several phrases are calques on French: ⟨portarsi⟩ “to be in health” on French se porter, ⟨portare sugli scudi⟩ on porter sur le pavois, ⟨a portata di mano⟩ on à portée de la main, and ⟨porto d’armi⟩ “firearms licence” on port d'armes.[3] The noun porto “carriage” is formed from the verb with no suffix.[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

GRADIT dates the verb to the end of the 12th century.[5] DELI's oldest sense, “to bear, endure”, is in Rinaldo d'Aquino, and before 1250 Giacomo da Lentini uses it for moving something by holding it up and for leading someone to an action.[3] Nocentini's date is the beginning of the 13th century.[4]

Semantic evolution

The reflexive portarsi meant “to behave” about 1284 and “to move, go” in Dante; before 1321 Dante also uses portare for a river or wind carrying something away.[3] “To wear” appears before 1348 in Francesco da Barberino, “to take with oneself” in 1353 in Boccaccio, and “to deliver, give as a present” before 1400 in Franco Sacchetti; a road that porta somewhere “leads” there in Luigi Alamanni, before 1556.[3]

Portarsi bene “to be well” was mocked as French by Scipione Maffei in 1747, and in 1871 Tommaseo still found it too French.[3] In 1877 Fanfani and Arlìa objected to portare for “to take (a person) somewhere”, since one carries a person only in one's arms; the use is now standard.[3][7] Portare a candidate “to put forward and support” is recorded in 1905.[3][11]

Proverbs and phrases include ambasciator non porta pena “do not blame the messenger” and la notte porta consiglio “sleep on it”.[12] Portare vasi a Samo, acqua al mare or legna al bosco means to do something useless.[13][14]

Timeline

  • Late 12th century – Rinaldo d'Aquino uses portare “to bear, endure”.[5][3]
  • Before 1250 – Giacomo da Lentini uses it for carrying something.[3]
  • c. 1284 – Reflexive portarsi “to behave”.[3]
  • Before 1348 – Francesco da Barberino uses it for wearing clothes.[3]
  • 1353 – Boccaccio uses it for taking something along.[3]
  • 1747 – Scipione Maffei mocks portarsi “to be in health” as a French usage.[3]
  • 1905 – Portare a candidate is recorded.[3]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To carry something or someone, holding them up while moving: Porto io la valigia fino al treno.[5][7][11]
  2. To bring, to take something to a place or a person; to deliver; to bring as a present: Ti ho portato dei fiori.[5][7][12]
  3. To take something with one when going somewhere: Porta l'ombrello, sta per piovere.[5][12]
  4. To take or lead a person somewhere: Stasera ti porto al cinema.[5][12][1]
  5. Of a road, a door and the like, to lead somewhere: Questo sentiero porta al lago.[11][3]
  6. To wear clothes, glasses, a hairstyle; to have a given size: Porta sempre la cravatta.[5][11][1]
  7. To bear a weight; to hold, have a capacity: Il furgone porta due tonnellate.[11][13]
  8. (figurative) To feel or harbour a feeling: portare rancore.[1][13]
  9. To bring about, cause, lead to: La pioggia ha portato molti danni.[15][7]
  10. To put forward and support a candidate.[11][3]
  11. (portarsi) To go, move to a place, (dated) to be in a given state of health.[7][3]

Word family

  • portabile
  • portamento
  • portante
  • portantina
  • portantino
  • portanza
  • portata
  • portatile
  • portatore
  • riportare

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
  4. ^ a b c d e Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
  6. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3029
  7. ^ a b c d e f Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
  8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
  9. ^ Buchi, Éva; Schweickard, Wolfgang, eds. (2008–), Dictionnaire Étymologique Roman (DÉRom), Nancy: ATILF, http://www.atilf.fr/DERom
  10. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  11. ^ a b c d e f Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
  12. ^ a b c d Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
  13. ^ a b c Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
  14. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
  15. ^ Wikizionario (Italian Wiktionary), it.wiktionary.org