aguçar

Forms

aguçar (first-person singular present aguço, first-person singular preterite agucei, past participle aguçado)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *acūtiō (“to sharpen”), a verb formed on Latin acūtus (“sharp, pointed”).^{[2][3][4][5][1]} Cunha and Machado set it beside Late Latin acūtō, of the same meaning, and the Porto Editora dictionary and the DHLF take the Vulgar Latin verb as an alteration of it.^[3][4][6][7] The DCECH notes that the agent noun acutiator (“sharpener”) is already found in Latin glosses.^[8]

The same verb is Galician aguzar, Spanish aguzar, Catalan agusar, Occitan agusar, French aiguiser and Italian aguzzare; the DCECH finds it in all the western Romance languages.^[9][1][8]

The Latin adjective is the past participle of acuō (“to sharpen”).^[10][1] Vieira (1871) derived the Portuguese verb from the Italian one, which the later dictionaries treat as a cognate.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

Machado's earliest example is a 13th-century law written in Latin, in which the Romance verb appears: Illos ferrarios que agucent illos malios, “the smiths who are to sharpen the hammers”.^[4] Houaiss dates the Portuguese verb to the 14th century from Cunha's index of medieval Portuguese, while Cunha gives the 13th.^[2][3] The first record in the CTA corpus is in the Livro dos Mártires of 1513.^[12]

Semantic evolution

The concrete senses “to make pointed” and “to give an edge” lead to the figurative “to stimulate” and “to make keen”: Morais (1789) already has the figurative senses “to whet” desire and appetite and “to sharpen” the understanding and wit.^[13][2] Viterbo records an old sense “to hurry, urge on, put heart into someone”, of which he took the sharpening of iron to be a metaphor.^[14] The first Caldas Aulete lists “to hurry” as archaic.^[15]

Bluteau has the nautical phrase aguçar de ló “to luff, sail closer to the wind”, with a quotation from Diogo do Couto, and Houaiss keeps it as a sense of the intransitive verb.^[16][2] Morais adds an intransitive “to rise, point upwards”, said of the leaves of trees.^[13] Brazilian Portuguese has the slang sense “to run off, make oneself scarce”.^[15][17] In Portuguese dialects the verb also means to set a dog on, and among whalers to fasten the harpoon to its line; the Sardinian verb of the same origin also means “to set a dog on”.^[18][9]

Timeline

• 13th century – the Romance verb in a law written in Latin (agucent).^[4]
• 13th century – Cunha's date for the Portuguese verb, and for aguçoso.^[3]
• 14th century – Houaiss's first date, from Cunha's index;^[2][3] aguçamento is recorded in the same century.^[2][3]
• 1513 – first record in the CTA corpus, in the Livro dos Mártires.^[12]
• 1569 – Cardoso renders it with Latin acuo and exacuo.^[19]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau records the nautical aguçar de ló.^[16]
• 1734 – Feijó's Orthographia sets aguçar against the spelling agussar.^[20]
• 1789 – Morais records the figurative senses and the intransitive “to point upwards”.^[13]
• 1871 – Vieira derives it from Italian.^[11]

Meanings

Verb

1. To make or become pointed; to taper: aguçar uma estaca.^[2][21]
2. To give an edge to (a cutting tool); to sharpen, afiar, amolar.^[2][21][1]
3. (figurative) To arouse or heighten; to stimulate (appetite, curiosity, hatred).^[2][21]
4. (figurative) To make keen or perceptive (the mind, the senses).^[2][17]
5. (pronominal, figurative) To make an effort; to act with zeal or haste.^[2][21]
6. (nautical, intransitive) Of a ship, to sail closer to the wind, luff.^[2][15]
7. (Brazil, informal, intransitive) To run away, slip off.^[17][15]

Word family

• aguçado
• aguçadura
• aguçamento
• aguçadeira

Related words

• aguça
• agudo
• Latin acūtus
• Spanish aguzar

Usage notes

The phrase aguçar o dente means to get ready, with relish, to eat or obtain something one wants; the DLP also gives it the sense of getting ready to gossip.^[6][22] Aguçar a língua is to prepare to speak ill of someone.^[17]

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 Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. aguçar
3. ^ a b c d e f Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. aguça
4. ^ a b c d Machado, José Pedro (1987), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., 5 vols., Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, p. s.v. aguçar
5. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. aguçar
6. ^ a b Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 364
7. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. aiguiser
8. ^ a b Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 86
9. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 134
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. acūtus
11. ^ 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, 244
12. ^ a b Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. aguçar
13. ^ a b c 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, 45
14. ^ Viterbo, Joaquim de Santa Rosa de (1798–1799), Elucidario das palavras, termos e frases que em Portugal antiguamente se usárão, 2 vols., Lisboa: Simão Thaddeo Ferreira, p. 1, 64
15. ^ 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. aguçar
16. ^ a b Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. aguçar
17. ^ 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. aguçar
18. ^ Instituto da Lingua Galega, Tesouro do léxico patrimonial galego e portugués (TLPGP), Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, https://ilg.usc.gal/tesouro, p. s.v. aguçar
19. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. aguçar
20. ^ 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. aguçar
21. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. aguçar
22. ^ 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. aguçar