acidente

Forms

acidente m (plural acidentes)^[1] Houaiss records acidente, acçidente and açidemte in the 15th century.^[2] The etymological spelling accidente was the main one until the 20th century: Bluteau and Feijó head the word so, and Vieira (1871) and Figueiredo (1899) refer acidente to accidente.^[3][4][5][6]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin accidēns (“chance event; non-essential quality”), a learned word.^[2][7][8][1] The Latin noun is the present participle of accidō (“to fall upon; to happen”), which is formed of ad- (“to”) and cadō (“to fall”).^[2][9][1] Nascentes calls it semi-learned.^[10]

The same Latin word was taken into Spanish accidente, recorded about 1300, French accident, from 1170, Italian accidente, Catalan accident and Romanian accident.^[11][12][1] De Vaan reconstructs the Latin verb for “to fall” as Proto-Indo-European *(ḱe-)ḱh₂d- (“to fall”), with a question mark,^[13] and Wiktionary gives *ḱad- (“to fall”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss dates the noun to the 14th century, Cunha and Machado to the 15th.^[2][7][8] Machado's 15th-century quotation sets acidentes beside gold and silver as the worldly things a good man must despise: ouro e prata e outros muytos acidentes cordiaaes deste mundo “gold and silver and many other accidents of this world that please the heart”.^[8]

Semantic evolution

Barbosa's dictionary of 1611 gives the Latin accidens and, for acidente de doença, the Greek-derived symptoma.^[14] Bluteau (1712) explains the two learned senses: in philosophy, what is not of the substance of a thing, like the whiteness of a wall, and in medicine, a dangerous turn that comes on a patient in the course of an illness.^[3] Grammar used it for the inflections of a word, gender, number and person.^[15] The everyday sense of an unhappy event that causes harm has become the main one, with phrases such as acidente de trabalho “accident at work” and, in Portugal, acidente de viação “road accident”.^[2][16] In popular use it also means a fainting fit or an epileptic seizure.^[2][17]

Timeline

• 14th century – first record.^[2]
• 15th century – the spellings acidente, acçidente and açidemte.^[2][8]
• 1525 – the Memorial da Infanta Santa Joana (copy after 1525) uses the word.^[18]
• 1569 – Cardoso renders it by Latin accidens.^[19]
• 1611 – Barbosa lists acidente de doença.^[14]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau explains the philosophical and medical senses under accidente.^[3]
• 1734 – Feijó heads the word accidente.^[4]
• 1871 – Vieira refers acidente to accidente.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A chance or unexpected event: Foi por um feliz acidente que encontraram a carta.^[2][16]
2. An unhappy event that causes damage, injury or death; an accident: Houve um acidente na estrada ontem à noite.^[2][16][1]
3. A secondary fact or detail, something not essential.^[2][15]
4. An irregularity of the ground, a feature of the terrain.^[2][1]
5. An uneven fall of light.^[2][17]
6. (informal) A sudden fit of illness; a fainting fit (desmaio), especially an epileptic one.^[2][17]
7. (philosophy) What belongs to a thing by chance and not to its essence, as opposed to substance (substância).^[2]
8. (medicine) An unexpected event in the course of an illness.^[2]
9. (music) An accidental: a sharp, flat or natural sign set before a note.^[2]
10. (religion) In the Eucharist, the colour, smell and taste of the bread and wine.^[2]

Word family

• acidental
• acidentado
• acidentar
• acidentação

Related words

• cair
• Latin accidēns
• Spanish accidente

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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 q r Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. acidente
3. ^ a b c Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. accidente
4. ^ a b 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. accidente
5. ^ a b 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, 100
6. ^ Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. 19
7. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. acidente
8. ^ a b c d Machado, José Pedro (1987), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., 5 vols., Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, p. s.v. acidente
9. ^ 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. acidente
10. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. acidente
11. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 28
12. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. accident
13. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. cadō
14. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. acidente
15. ^ 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. acidente
16. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. acidente
17. ^ a b c 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. acidente
18. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. acidente
19. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. acidente