afogar

Forms

afogar (first-person singular present afogo, first-person singular preterite afoguei, past participle afogado)^[1] The 13th-century texts write afogar and affogar;^[2][3] Houaiss also records affoguar in the 15th century.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *affōcō, written Old Galician-Portuguese afogar in the oldest texts.^[2][3][1] The Vulgar Latin verb is classical offōcō (“to choke, throttle”) with the prefix changed, and that verb is formed from ob- and faucēs (“throat”).^[2][4][5][6]

The same Latin verb is Galician afogar, Spanish ahogar, Catalan ofegar, Occitan afogar and Italian affogare.^[7][1] Corominas explains the different prefixes as attempts to normalise the prefix ⟨o-⟩, which is rare in Romance: ⟨a-⟩ won in Spanish, Galician-Portuguese, Asturian and Italian, while Portuguese ofegar and its Catalan and Occitan counterparts go back to a form with ⟨-i-⟩, found in a Latin recipe of the 7th–10th centuries.^[8] Wiktionary treats that verb as a doublet of this one.^[1]

The Latin /k/ between vowels was voiced to /ɡ/, as Vieira noted in 1871.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantigas de Santa Maria of the 13th century use the verb both for drowning (no ryo... foi morrer... afogado “he died drowned in the river”) and for choking, as of a man who had a bone stuck in his throat.^[10] The Crónica Troiana has huus mandou queimar et os outros afogar “some he had burnt and the others drowned”.^[10]

Semantic evolution

In Latin the verb meant “to choke, to throttle”.^[4] Corominas considers the sense “to drown” an innovation of the Romance languages of the Iberian Peninsula and of Italian, perhaps imitated from Greek, where the verb for “to choke” also meant “to drown”.^[8][11] Machado notes a narrowing of the meaning: the old word was partly replaced by sufocar.^[12] Nascentes says that today it means suffocation by water.^[5]

João de Barros still uses it for smothering: dizem que afogou seu filho com uma touca “they say that she smothered her son with a cap”.^[9][12] Morais (1789) adds figurative senses: rain or heavy soil that afoga as sementes keeps the seeds from sprouting, and thorns choke the young wheat.^[13] Modern dictionaries add an engine that stalls from too much fuel and the reflexive “to get drunk”.^[14][1]

Timeline

• 1200s – afogar and affogar, and the participle afogado in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[2][3]
• 1300s – the derivatives afogadiço and afogamento.^[3]
• 1400s – the spelling affoguar.^[2]
• 1513 – afogar in the Livro dos Mártires.^[15]
• 1500s – desafogar is recorded.^[3]
• 1569 – Cardoso translates the verb with Latin words for strangling.^[16]
• 1712 – first record of afogadilho.^[3]
• 1789 – Morais records the figurative afogar as sementes.^[13]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive and reflexive) To drown, to kill or die by keeping or being kept under water: o rapaz afogou-se no rio.^[2][17][1]
2. (transitive) To keep from breathing; to suffocate, strangle.^[2][17][1]
3. (transitive, figurative) To hold back, stifle or suppress a feeling or the voice; to try to forget: afogar as mágoas.^[2][18][1]
4. (transitive) Of a plant, to keep another from growing; to choke.^[18][19]
5. (transitive) To soak, cover completely with a liquid; to submerge.^[17][18]
6. (intransitive) Of an engine, to stall from too much fuel or too little air;^[14][1] (transitive) to work a vehicle's choke.^[14][1]
7. (reflexive) To get drunk.^[14][1]
8. (transitive) To fit a garment close round the neck.^[17][19]

Word family

• afogadilho
• afogado
• afogador
• afogamento
• desafogar
• desafogo

Related words

• ofegar
• sufocar
• Latin offōcō
• Spanish ahogar

Usage notes

Afogar-se em pouca água “to drown in a little water” means to worry over trifles.^[14]

The DLP, Aurélio and Michaelis record a separate verb afogar “to braise, to stew slowly in little water” (the same as refogar), formed from fogo.^[19][6][18]

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. afogar
3. ^ a b c d e f g Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. afogar
4. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. offōcō
5. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. afogar
6. ^ a b Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. afogar
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6046
8. ^ a b Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 87
9. ^ 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, 206
10. ^ a b 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. afogar
11. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. ahogar
12. ^ a b Machado, José Pedro (1987), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., 5 vols., Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, p. s.v. afogar
13. ^ 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, 37
14. ^ a b c d e Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 310
15. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. afogar
16. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. afogar
17. ^ a b c d Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. afogar
18. ^ 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. afogar
19. ^ a b c 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. afogar