afundar

Forms

afundar (first-person singular present afundo, first-person singular preterite afundei, past participle afundado)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote afondar and affondar in the 13th century;^[2][3] afundar and affundar appear in the 14th.^[2][3]

Etymology

Houaiss, Aurélio, the DLP and Priberam analyse it as formed from Portuguese a- + fundo + -ar, from fundo “bottom”.^[2][4][5][6] Machado, Wiktionary and Porto Editora instead derive it from Vulgar Latin *affundō (“to sink”), made of ad- and fundus (“bottom”), written Old Galician-Portuguese afondar in the oldest texts.^[7][1][8] Meyer-Lübke lists the Romance verbs under the Latin form but notes that the Romanian one, and perhaps the others, may be new formations in each language.^[9]

The verb is Galician afondar, Spanish ahondar, Catalan afondar, Italian affondare and Romanian afunda in the other Romance languages.^[9][1][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantigas de Santa Maria (cantiga 112) tell how as naves dos pagãos eno mar se afondarom “the ships of the pagans sank in the sea”.^[7] A 14th-century text has como se o mundo todo se houvesse a afundar “as if the whole world were to sink”.^[7]

Semantic evolution

Cardoso (1569) and Barbosa (1611) translate it with Latin demergo “to plunge, sink”.^[11][12] Bluteau (1712–1728) gives meter a pique “to send to the bottom” and the reflexive afundar-se “to go down”.^[13] Morais (1789) adds the senses “to deepen by digging” (a well, a mine, a foundation) and “to put a new bottom on a vessel”.^[14]

Figurative senses followed: to make something vanish, to examine a matter in depth, and to fall into ruin.^[15][16] Brazilian school slang uses it for making a pupil fail an exam with hard questions, and in basketball it means to dunk.^[4][6][1]

Timeline

• 13th century – se afondarom in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[7][2]
• 14th century – the spelling afundar.^[2][7]
• 1569 – Cardoso's dictionary lists Afundar.^[11]
• 1634 – afundarão in a private letter.^[17]
• 1789 – Morais adds the sense “to deepen by digging”.^[14]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive, intransitive and pronominal) To sink, go or make go to the bottom; to submerge (submergir): O barco afundou-se perto do cais.^[2][15][1]
2. (transitive) To push something deep into something: Afundei a mão na terra molhada..^[2][15]
3. (transitive) To make deeper by digging; to deepen (aprofundar): afundar a vala.^[2][16]
4. (transitive, figurative) To examine a matter closely.^[4][16]
5. (pronominal, figurative) To be lost or ruined; to fail.^[8][18]
6. (Brazil, school slang) To make a pupil fail an exam with hard questions.^[4]
7. (basketball) To dunk the ball.^[6][1]

Word family

• afundamento

Related words

• fundo
• aprofundar
• profundo
• Galician afondar
• Spanish ahondar

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 Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. afundar
3. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. afundar
4. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. afundar
5. ^ 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. afundar
6. ^ a b c Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. afundar
7. ^ a b c d e Machado, José Pedro (1987), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., 5 vols., Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, p. s.v. afundar
8. ^ a b Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 322
9. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 269
10. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. affundare
11. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. afundar
12. ^ Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. afundar
13. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. afundar
14. ^ 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, 39
15. ^ 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. afundar
16. ^ 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. afundar
17. ^ 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. afundar
18. ^ Wikcionário (Portuguese Wiktionary), pt.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. afundar