afluente

Forms

afluente m (plural afluentes)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin affluens (“flowing; abounding, rich”), the present participle of affluō (“to flow towards or into”).^[2][3][4][1] The Latin verb is formed from ad- and fluō (“to flow”).^[5][1] Nascentes calls it a semi-learned word, Wiktionary a learned borrowing.^[6][1] Cunha records the older spelling ⟨affluente⟩ in the 16th century.^[3]

Houaiss treats the sense “materially rich” as a separate borrowing of the English word affluent, itself from the same Latin word, and Aurélio gives this sense its own article, from English.^[2][7] The word belongs with afluir and afluência, and Aurélio sets it against efluente, confluente and defluente.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss dates the adjective “flowing towards” to the 15th century, from Cunha's index of medieval Portuguese.^[2] Machado's earliest quotation, from the 16th century, is from D. Hilarião Brandão's A Voz do Amado and has the sense “abundant”: da larga e affluente magnificência do dador “of the generous and abundant magnificence of the giver”.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The noun, a river that flows into another, is a 19th-century use: Houaiss dates it to 1871, and Machado quotes Latino Coelho calling the barbarians um afluente ao rio caudaloso das civilizações antigas “a tributary to the mighty river of the ancient civilisations”.^[2][4] The original Caldas Aulete also had a medical sense, of humours that flow towards a part of the body.^[8] In the 20th century the adjective took the sense “rich, a great producer and consumer” from English, as in sociedade afluente “affluent society”, and engineering uses it for a fluid stream that enters a machine, the opposite of efluente.^[2][7]

Timeline

• 15th century – first record of the adjective, according to Houaiss after Cunha's medieval index.^[2]
• 16th century – affluente “abundant” in D. Hilarião Brandão's A Voz do Amado;^[4][3] Cunha dates the spelling aff- to the same century.^[4][3]
• 1776 – a private letter has afluente.^[9]
• 1871 – Houaiss's first date for the sense “tributary river”.^[2]
• 20th century – the sense “materially rich”, after the English word.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Flowing towards a place (afluir); arriving in great numbers.^[2][8][10]
2. abundant, copious, plentiful.^{[2][7][11][1]}
3. (figurative) affluent, wealthy, consuming and producing a great deal: sociedade afluente.^[2][7][8]
4. (technology) Of a stream of fluid that enters an engine or a piece of equipment.^[2][7]

Noun

1. A river or stream that flows into a larger one or into a lake; a tributary (tributário): O Douro recebe vários afluentes espanhóis.^{[2][10][12][1]}

Related words

• afluir
• afluência
• efluente
• confluente
• Latin affluens

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. afluente
3. ^ a b c d Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. afluir
4. ^ a b c d e Machado, José Pedro (1987), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., 5 vols., Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, p. s.v. afluente
5. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. affluō
6. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. afluente
7. ^ a b c d e f Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. afluente
8. ^ a b c 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. afluente
9. ^ 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. afluente
10. ^ 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. afluente
11. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 308
12. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. afluente