ajudar

Forms

ajudar (first-person singular present ajudo, first-person singular preterite ajudei, past participle ajudado)^[1] Houaiss records aiudar and aaiudar beside ajudar in the 13th century, and the learned variant adjudar in the 15th.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin adiūtō (“to help, assist”), written Old Galician-Portuguese ajudar in the oldest texts.^{[2][4][3][5][1]} The Latin verb is the frequentative of adiuvō (“to come to the aid of, help”).^[2][6] Machado notes that it was avoided in classical prose but lived on in the spoken language as an expressive, intensive verb;^[3] Petronius puts it in the mouth of Trimalchio.^[3]

The same Latin word is Galician axudar, Spanish ayudar, Catalan ajudar, Occitan ajudar, French aider, Italian aiutare and Romanian ajuta.^[7][1] García de Diego adds audar, an Old Leonese form of 1197.^[8]

That verb is formed ad- and iuvō (“to help”).^[9][10] De Vaan reconstructs a Proto-Italic stem *ijow- and a Proto-Indo-European present *h₁i-h₁euH- (“to help”), with cognates in Old Irish and Sanskrit;^[10][1] Wiktionary calls the further origin uncertain.^[10][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The verb appears in Romance form inside two Latin charters of 1075 from the monastery of Moreira, which give land por que aiudastes nos “because you helped us” to claim other estates.^[3][2] In Galician-Portuguese it is common from the 13th century in the senses “to help, aid, succour”: the Cantigas de Santa Maria pray that the Virgin nos dev'ajudar “must help us”, and the oath se Deus m'ajude “so help me God” is already used there.^[11][4]

Semantic evolution

The medieval verb meant to help, succour and assist, and could take a direct object or the prepositions a and de.^[11][12] Cunha dates ajuda and ajudador to the 13th century and ajudante to the 14th.^[4]

Morais (1789) adds the senses “to serve, minister” (ajudar à missa, to serve as an acolyte at Mass) and “to promote, favour”, as in bitter things that aid digestion, and the phrase ajudar a bem morrer, to give a dying person the comforts of religion.^[13] With the reflexive it meant “to make use of, avail oneself of”.^[13][2]

In north-eastern Brazil the verb is a term of the sugar mills, “to add the clarifying liquid (the ajuda) to the cane juice”.^[14][15] In the Alentejo the reflexive ajudar-se meant to be able to do a job, or carry a load, by oneself.^[16] The verb passed into Macanese as judâ.^[1]

Timeline

• 1075 – two Latin charters of the monastery of Moreira write adiudastes and aiudastes.^[3][2]
• 13th century – first records in Galician-Portuguese, and of ajuda and ajudador.^[4][2]
• c. 1430 – the Horto do Esposo is the first text of the CTA corpus with the verb.^[17]
• 15th century – the learned spelling adjudar.^[2]
• 1569 – Cardoso's dictionary renders it by Latin iuvo and auxilior.^[18]
• 1712 – Bluteau lists the phrase ajudar dante mão “to help beforehand”.^[19]
• 1789 – Morais records ajudar à missa and ajudar a bem morrer.^[13]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To help, aid, assist (someone): Ajudei a vizinha com as compras.^{[2][14][20][1]}
2. (transitive) To succour, come to the rescue of: to relieve those in need.^[2][20][21]
3. (transitive) To make easier, favour, promote: O descanso ajuda a recuperação.^[2][14][21]
4. (intransitive) To give help: Todos quiseram ajudar.^[2][22]
5. (pronominal) To help one another; to make use of, avail oneself of.^[2][21]
6. (religion) ajudar à missa: to serve the priest at Mass as an acolyte.^[6][21]
7. (north-eastern Brazil) In sugar mills, to add the clarifying ajuda to the cane juice.^[14][15]

Word family

• ajuda
• ajudador
• ajudante
• desajudar
• desajudado

Related words

• adjutor
• adjutório
• coadjutor
• Latin adiuvō
• Galician axudar
• Spanish ayudar

Usage notes

Deus te ajude (or Deus o ajude) is said to someone who sneezes, and assim Deus me ajude “so help me God” is a form of oath.^[22][6]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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. ajudar
3. ^ a b c d e f Machado, José Pedro (1987), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., 5 vols., Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, p. s.v. ajudar
4. ^ a b c d Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. ajudar
5. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. ajudar
6. ^ 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. ajudar
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 172
8. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. adiutare
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. adiūtō
10. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ 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. ajudar
12. ^ Universo Cantigas: Glosario da poesía medieval profana galego-portuguesa, A Coruña: Instituto da Lingua e Literatura (ILLA), Universidade da Coruña, https://www.universocantigas.gal, p. s.v. ajudar
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, 47
14. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. ajudar
15. ^ a b Navarro, Fred (2004), Dicionário do Nordeste, São Paulo: Estação Liberdade, p. s.v. ajudar
16. ^ Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. 45
17. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. ajudar
18. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. ajudar
19. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. ajudar
20. ^ a b Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 379
21. ^ 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. ajudar
22. ^ 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. ajudar