achar

Forms

achar (first-person singular present acho, first-person singular preterite achei, past participle achado)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin afflō (“to blow on, breathe on”), written Old Galician-Portuguese achar in the oldest texts.^[2][3][4][1] Aurélio and Nascentes start from a Vulgar Latin form *aflare, with a single /f/.^[5][6] The Latin verb is formed from ad- (“to, towards”) and flō (“to blow”).^[1][7] Houaiss gives the learned aflar as its doublet.^[2]

The sense “to find” is explained from the language of hunting: the dog breathes upon or scents the game, so the verb came to mean “to scent the trail” and then “to find” it.^[2][3][4][6] The REW gives a second explanation, from farming, where the verb was used of a hot wind or disease that strikes animals or plants, hence “to catch hold of”.^[8] Machado suggests that the verb was the oldest replacement of Latin inveniō (“to find”), and Nascentes says it supplanted that verb.^[4][6]

The same Latin verb is Galician achar, Spanish hallar (old Old Spanish fallar) and Romanian afla, and survives in dialects of southern Italy.^[9][8][1] Vieira (1871) derived the word from an Arabic verb, and Figueiredo (1899) called it of unknown origin.^[10][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss's first date, 952, is the form achamus “we found” in a Latin charter: et achamus illo in iure de filio de Gundesindo, “and we found it in the right of the son of Gundesindo”.^[2][4] The Portuguese verb is recorded from the 13th century, already meaning “to find, come upon”.^[2][3][12] The cantigas of Alfonso X have ao daian de Cález eu achei / livros “I found books with the dean of Cádiz”, and use the verb also for “to establish, verify”.^[12]

Semantic evolution

Machado quotes the Latin of the hunt, canis leporem afflat “the dog scents the hare”, and Latin writers of the 2nd and 5th centuries who use the verb for a rumour or a terror that “touches” a city, the start of the change of sense.^[4] In the cantigas the verb already meant “to judge, think” and, in the reflexive, “to find oneself, feel, be”: achar-se ben “to be pleased, gain by it” and achar-se mal “to regret it”.^[12][13]

Folqman's dictionary of 1755 gives three senses, “to find what is sought”, “to invent” and “to judge, be of the opinion”, with acho que não tens culpa “I think you are not to blame”.^[14] In modern slang achar-se means “to think too highly of oneself”.^[1]

The verb passed into Kabuverdianu (atcha), Guinea-Bissau Creole (otca) and Macanese (achâ).^[1]

Timeline

• 952 – achamus in a Latin charter.^[2][4]
• 13th century – first records of the Portuguese verb, in the cantigas.^[2][3][12]
• c. 1400 – a fragment of a Flos Sanctorum (witness 1380–1425), the first CTA text with the verb.^[15]
• 1611 – Barbosa distinguishes achar acaso and achar buscando and lists achamento.^[16]
• 1755 – Folqman records achar “to judge, be of the opinion”.^[14]
• 1789 – Morais lists the reflexive achar-se “to be present, be in a state”.^[17]

Meanings

Verb

1. To find, by searching or by chance; to come across: Achei a chave debaixo do tapete.^[2][1][18]
2. To discover or work out; to invent.^[18][19]
3. To get, obtain: achar emprego.^[18][20]
4. To consider or judge (something to be so): Acho este livro aborrecido.^[1][5]
5. To think, be of the opinion (que, de): Acho que vai chover.^[1][18]
6. (reflexive) To be, find oneself in a place or state.^[1][19]
7. (reflexive, slang) To think too highly of oneself.^[1]

Word family

• achado
• achamento

Related words

• inchar
• soprar
• aflar
• Latin afflō
• Spanish hallar
• Galician achar

Usage notes

Houaiss, Cunha and Dalgado also record a separate noun achar, a pickle of fruits or roots in vinegar or brine from the cookery of India, first recorded in 1563 in Garcia da Orta's Colóquios; it is from Persian, probably through Malay, and Corriente gives the chain from Hindi and Persian.^{[2][3][21][22]}

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. achar
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. achar
4. ^ a b c d e f Machado, José Pedro (1987), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., 5 vols., Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, p. s.v. achar
5. ^ a b Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. achar
6. ^ a b c Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. achar
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 308
10. ^ Vieira, Frei Domingos (1871–1874), Grande Diccionario Portuguez ou Thesouro da lingua portugueza, 5 vols., Porto: Ernesto Chardron e Bartholomeu H. de Moraes, p. 1, 95
11. ^ Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. s.v. achar
12. ^ a b c d 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. achar
13. ^ Universo Cantigas: Glosario da poesía medieval profana galego-portuguesa, A Coruña: Instituto da Lingua e Literatura (ILLA), Universidade da Coruña, https://www.universocantigas.gal, p. s.v. achar
14. ^ a b Folqman, Carlos (1755), Diccionario portuguez, e latino, Lisboa: Régia Officina Silviana (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. achar
15. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. achar
16. ^ Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. achar
17. ^ 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, 18
18. ^ 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. achar
19. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. achar
20. ^ 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. achar
21. ^ Dalgado, Sebastião Rodolfo (1919–1921), Glossário luso-asiático, 2 vols., Coimbra: Imprensa da Universidade, p. 1, 8
22. ^ Corriente, Federico (1999), Diccionario de arabismos y voces afines en iberorromance, Madrid: Gredos