abertura

Forms

abertura f (plural aberturas)^[1] The 15th century also has abredura.^[2][3] Feijó (1734) lists abretura beside abertura.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin apertūra (“act of opening; opening, hole”), a Latin word found in Vitruvius and in Justinian's Digest, which Houaiss and Machado class as Late Latin.^[2][5][3] Wiktionary notes that by surface analysis it is from Portuguese aberto + -ura, the participle of abrir, and Silva Bastos and Figueiredo derived it so.^[1][6][7] The musical sense “overture” follows French ouverture, as in all the Romance languages, and the French word itself was long used in Portuguese.^[2]

The same Latin word is Galician abertura, Spanish abertura, and Italian apertura.^[8][1] The Spanish word apertura, with the Latin shape, is a learned word.^[9]

The Latin noun is formed on the participle of aperiō (“to open”) with the suffix -ūra.^[10][1] De Vaan analyses the verb as ab (“off, away”) and a verb “to cover”, Proto-Italic *ap-wer-je-, from *h₂u̯er-, the source also of atvérti (“to open”).^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss and Cunha date the word to the 14th century.^[2][3] Machado's earliest quotation, from a text he places in the 15th century, uses it of an opening in someone's forehead: nom estava em na sua fronte parte mais firme que o lugar da dita abertura “there was no firmer part of his forehead than the place of the said opening”.^[5] The Galician Estoria has aquelas aberturas.^[12]

Semantic evolution

The dictionaries of the 16th and 17th centuries translate it with Latin apertio “act of opening” and rima or scissura “crack”.^[13][14] Morais (1789) adds the figurative sense “beginning of a function or session”, as in a abertura dos Estados, do Concílio, dos tribunais, and the 1813 edition the opening of graves, seals and wills, the opening at the front of a shirt, and a disease of horses.^[15][16]

The musical sense was still missing in Morais's dictionary of 1813 and was recorded by Vieira in 1871.^[2] The later dictionaries add the solemn inauguration of an event, the spread of a compass or of an angle, and the figurative senses “frankness” and “openness to new ideas”.^[2][17] In politics it names the transition away from an authoritarian regime.^[17][18]

Timeline

• 14th century – first records.^[2][3]
• 15th century – the variant abredura.^[2][3]
• 1525 – the Memorial da Infanta Santa Joana has abertura.^[19]
• 1569 – Cardoso translates it with Latin apertio.^[13]
• 1789 – Morais records “beginning” of a session, a abertura dos tribunais.^[15]
• 1871 – Vieira records the musical sense “overture”.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act of opening (abrir) or of being opened; clearing an obstruction.^[2][20][21]
2. An opening in a surface: a hole, gap or crack: espreitou por uma abertura na parede.^[2][20][1]
3. The opening at the top of a garment; decote.^[20][21]
4. The beginning of something: a abertura do ano lectivo.^[2][20]
5. A solemn inauguration: a sessão de abertura do congresso.^[2][20]
6. The distance between the points of a compass, the sides of an angle, or the two ends of a bay or valley.^[2][20][17]
7. (figurative) Frankness; openness and tolerance towards new ideas.^[2][20]
8. (music) An overture: the orchestral piece that opens an opera or ballet.^[2][22][1]
9. (politics) The easing of an authoritarian regime.^[17][18]
10. (chess) The opening moves of a game.^[18]
11. (optics, photography) The aperture of a lens.^[1]

Related words

• aberto
• abrir
• Latin apertūra
• Galician abertura
• French ouverture

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 h i j k l m n o p Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. abertura
3. ^ a b c d e Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. aberta
4. ^ Feijó, João de Morais Madureira (1734), Orthographia, ou Arte de escrever, e pronunciar com acerto a lingua portugueza, Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. abertura
5. ^ a b Machado, José Pedro (1987), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., 5 vols., Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, p. s.v. abertura
6. ^ Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. abertura
7. ^ Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. s.v. abertura
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 516
9. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. apertura
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. apertūra
11. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
12. ^ Instituto da Lingua Galega, Dicionario de dicionarios do galego medieval (DDGM), ed. Ernesto González Seoane, Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, https://ilg.usc.gal/ddgm, p. s.v. abertura
13. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. abertura
14. ^ Pereira, Bento (1697), Thesouro da lingoa portuguesa, in the 1697 edition of his Prosodia (1st ed. 1647; CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. abertura
15. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1789), Diccionario da lingua portugueza composto pelo padre D. Rafael Bluteau, reformado, e accrescentado, 2 vols., Lisboa: Simão Thaddeo Ferreira, p. 1, 5
16. ^ Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 1, 8
17. ^ a b c d Aulete, Francisco Júlio Caldas, Dicionário contemporâneo da língua portuguesa (1st ed. 1881), online as Aulete Digital, Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, https://aulete.com.br, p. s.v. abertura
18. ^ a b c Wikcionário (Portuguese Wiktionary), pt.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. abertura
19. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. abertura
20. ^ a b c d e f g Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. abertura
21. ^ a b Academia das Ciências de Lisboa, Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, revised online edition (2023–) of the Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa Contemporânea (2001), https://dicionario.acad-ciencias.pt, p. s.v. abertura
22. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. abertura