acesso

Forms

acesso m (plural acessos)^[1] Cunha records the older spelling accesso from the 16th century, and a private letter of 1759 still writes it so.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin accessus (“approach, arrival, entry; onset of an illness”), a learned word.^[4][2][5][1] Houaiss dates it to 1589 in the sense “possibility of reaching”, and Cunha to the 16th century.^[4][2]

The Latin noun is formed from accēdō (“to approach”) with the suffix -tus, and the verb from ad- (“to, towards”) and cēdō (“to go, move”).^[4][1][6] The same Latin word gave Spanish acceso, French accès and Italian accesso.^[7][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Machado's earliest quotation is from the 16th-century Décadas: in India, it says, experience shows that the winds are not governed by accesso ou recesso do Sol “the approach or withdrawal of the Sun”.^[5] The sense is the Latin one of drawing near.^[5]

Semantic evolution

Latin already used the word for the onset of a disease, in Pliny and Aulus Gellius, and Portuguese kept that sense beside “approach” and “entry”.^[5] From it come the sudden fits of the modern language, of coughing as of rage, and the medical sense of a short, often violent attack.^[4]

The old Caldas Aulete gives “promotion, rise” beside “arrival, entry”, as in the rise of a ruler to the throne;^[9][4] Houaiss records the same use for the promotion of a Brazilian civil servant to a higher post, a procedure the Constitution of 1988 abolished.^[9][4] In computing the word names the reading and writing of data on a device, a disk or a network.^[4]

Timeline

• 16th century – accesso in the Décadas, in the sense “approach”.^[5][2]
• 1589 – Houaiss's first date, for the sense “possibility of reaching”.^[4]
• 1759 – a private letter still spells it accesso.^[3]
• 1975 – the first Aurélio lists “entry”, “passage” and “approach” as the first senses.^[10]
• 1988 – the Brazilian Constitution abolishes acesso as a form of promotion in the civil service.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. entry, admission: the act or right of going in: O acesso ao jardim é gratuito.^[4][11]
2. The possibility of reaching a place; approach: uma praia de acesso difícil.^[4][11][12]
3. passage, traffic of people or vehicles; a way or road leading into a place.^[4][11][12]
4. The possibility of obtaining something hard to reach: o acesso à universidade.^[4][11]
5. Ease of social contact; how approachable a person is.^[4][13][12]
6. A sudden fit or outburst: um acesso de choro.^[4][14]
7. (medicine) A sudden, often violent and short attack of a disease.^[4][13]
8. (computing) access to a device, storage medium, network or file, to read or write data.^[4][1]
9. Promotion to a higher post or rank;^[4][14][13] (Brazil, law, obsolete) a form of promotion in the civil service.^[4][14][13]

Related words

• aceder
• acessível
• inacessível
• acessão
• acessório
• Latin accessus
• Spanish acceso

Usage notes

The Tesouro do léxico patrimonial records a Brazilian regional sense, a log or plank used to get across a narrow footbridge.^[15]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. acesso
3. ^ a b CLUL (ed.) (2014), P.S. Post Scriptum: Arquivo Digital de Escrita Quotidiana em Portugal e Espanha na Época Moderna, Lisboa: Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, http://ps.clul.ul.pt, p. s.v. acesso
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. acesso
5. ^ a b c d e Machado, José Pedro (1987), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., 5 vols., Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, p. s.v. acesso
6. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. accès
7. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 5
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. accessus
9. ^ a b 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. acesso
10. ^ Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda (1975), Novo dicionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira, p. 47
11. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. acesso
12. ^ a b c Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 166
13. ^ a b c d Michaelis: Moderno Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, São Paulo: Melhoramentos (online as Michaelis Dicionário Brasileiro da Língua Portuguesa, https://michaelis.uol.com.br), p. s.v. acesso
14. ^ a b c Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. acesso
15. ^ Instituto da Lingua Galega, Tesouro do léxico patrimonial galego e portugués (TLPGP), Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, https://ilg.usc.gal/tesouro, p. s.v. acesso