anunciar

Forms

anunciar (first-person singular present anuncio, first-person singular preterite anunciei, past participle anunciado)^[1] Cunha records anũciar in the 14th century, anoçiar and anuciar in the 15th, and annunciar, with the double ⟨nn⟩ of Latin, from the 16th.^[2][3] The etymological spelling annunciar was still the main one around 1900: Figueiredo (1899) and Silva Bastos (1912) send the reader from anunciar to annunciar.^[4][5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin annūntiō (“to announce, make known”), written Old Galician-Portuguese anuciar in 1344.^[3] Cunha dates the word to the 14th century.^[2][1] Nascentes describes it as a semi-learned word.^[6]

The same Latin verb is Galician anunciar, Spanish anunciar, Italian annunciare, French annoncer and Romanian anunța.^[1][7][8]

The Latin verb is formed from ad- and nūntiō (“to bring word, announce”), which comes from nūntius (“messenger; message”).^[3][8][9] Lewis and Short note that it is mostly post-Augustan and ecclesiastical, and very frequent in the Vulgate.^[10] The origin of the noun is unclear: de Vaan starts from a form *nountio- and tentatively favours a link with Proto-Indo-European *newH- (“to cry”), while the derivation from novus (“new”) has been proposed but is rejected by him.^[9][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss dates the first record to 1344, in the spelling anuciar, from Cunha's index of medieval Portuguese.^[3] Machado's earliest quotation is from the 16th century, from Vasco Mousinho de Quevedo's poem Afonso Africano: the poet says that his knowledge of the future glory of the “fortunate navigators” compels him to announce it.^[11]

Semantic evolution

In Medieval Latin the verb meant to announce and to predict, to reveal (of divine revelation) and to preach the Gospel, besides to proclaim and to order.^[12] The old Caldas Aulete gives the Portuguese verb the senses “to declare in public, to make known”, “to foretell” and “to publish an advertisement for”, and records an intransitive use, “to advertise”.^[13] The commercial sense has since moved to the front: Aurélio's first sense is to pay for the advertising of a product or service.^[14] Houaiss adds the senses “to announce the arrival of someone” and, with a reflexive pronoun, “to present oneself as”.^[3]

Timeline

• 1344 – first record, spelt anuciar.^[3]
• 15th century – the spellings anunciar and anoçiar.^[3][2]
• 16th century – the Latinising spelling annunciar;^[2][11] Mousinho de Quevedo writes it in the Afonso Africano.^[2][11]
• 1553 – first record of anunciador.^[15]
• 1899 – Figueiredo still heads the word annunciar.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To make known, announce, tell (a piece of news) to someone: A escola anunciou as datas dos exames.^[3][14][16]
2. To advertise; to put an advertisement in a newspaper or other medium;^[14][17][3] (intransitive) to advertise.^[14][17][3]
3. To be a sign of, herald: Aquelas nuvens escuras anunciam tempestade.^[3][16]
4. To foretell, predict.^[3][18]
5. To announce the arrival or presence of (someone): O porteiro anunciou o visitante.^[3][16][18]
6. (reflexive) To present oneself as, call oneself.^[3]

Related words

• anúncio
• anunciação
• anunciador
• anunciante
• núncio
• denunciar
• enunciar
• pronunciar
• renunciar
• Latin annuntio

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. anunciar
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. anunciar
4. ^ a b Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. 104
5. ^ Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. anunciar
6. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. anunciar
7. ^ Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. anunciar
8. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. annoncer
9. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ a b c Machado, José Pedro (1987), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., 5 vols., Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, p. s.v. anunciar
12. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
13. ^ 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. anunciar
14. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. anunciar
15. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. anunciador
16. ^ 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. anunciar
17. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. anunciar
18. ^ a b Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 755