Etymologically

Etymology and origin of the Portuguese word apor

Confidence
Established
Formation
Inherited
First attested
1200s Cantigas de Santa Maria, spelt apõer More words from the 13th century
Inherited from
Latin appono
Ultimate origin
Latin pōnō
Etymology tree
inherited borrowed derived
Latin sinō
Latin pōnō
French pondre
Italian porre
Portuguese pôr
Romanian pune
Spanish poner
Latin appōnō
Italian apporre
Portuguese apor
Romanian apune
From the same root
Latin dēsinō ← sinō
Latin situs ← sinō
French ponte ← pōnō
Italian contrapporre ← pōnō
Italian deporre ← pōnō
Italian disporre ← pōnō
Latin antepōnō ← pōnō
Latin circumpōnō ← pōnō
Latin compōnō ← pōnō
Latin dēpōnō ← pōnō
Latin dispōnō ← pōnō
Latin expōnō ← pōnō
Latin impōnō ← pōnō
Latin interpōnō ← pōnō
Latin oppōnō ← pōnō
Latin positiō ← pōnō
Latin positīvus ← pōnō
Latin positūra ← pōnō
Latin positus ← pōnō
Latin postpōnō ← pōnō
Latin praepōnō ← pōnō
Latin prōpōnō ← pōnō
Latin repōnō ← pōnō
Latin sepono ← pōnō
Latin superpōnō ← pōnō
Latin suppōnō ← pōnō
Romanian propune ← pōnō
Italian ponente ← porre
Italian sovrapporre ← porre
Portuguese depor ← pôr
See all derived words →

Pronunciation

  • Brazil: /aˈpoʁ/, [aˈpoh][1]
  • São-Paulo: /aˈpoɾ/[1]
  • Rio-de-Janeiro: /aˈpoʁ/, [aˈpoχ][1]
  • Caipira: /aˈpoɻ/[1]

Forms

apor (first-person singular present aponho, first-person singular preterite apus, past participle aposto)[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote apõer and apoer, with forms such as apõedes, apõen, aponna and aposeran.[2][3][4][5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin appōnō (“to place near, set beside; to add”), written Old Galician-Portuguese apõer in the oldest texts, also without the tilde.[6][5][3][1] Nascentes considers the word semi-learned.[7] The Latin verb is formed from ad- and pōnō (“to put”),[8][1] and the Portuguese verb is conjugated like pôr.[9][10]

The same Latin verb is Galician apoñer, Spanish aponer, Italian apporre and Romanian apune,[1][11] and in the French of the Jura and the Alps it survives as appondre "to join end to end".[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the 13th-century Cantigas de Santa Maria the verb means "to impute, to lay (a charge) on someone": porque ll'apõyan que matara a ssa moller "because they accused him of having killed his wife" (cantiga 213).[2][3] The cantigas d'escarnho use it in apoer culpa "to lay the blame" and apoer mal prez "to give a bad name".[2][13]

Semantic evolution

The medieval sense "to attribute, impute" is found in the Crónica Troiana (apões formosos nomẽes a a tua culpa "you give fair names to your fault") and was recorded again in 2006 at Carragosa, in the district of Bragança.[2][14] The standard language now uses the verb in the physical sense of the Latin, "to put beside or on, to add", above all of affixing a signature, a stamp or a fingerprint to a document.[6][15] In rural Portugal it also means to yoke oxen or cows to a cart or plough.[16][17][14] In grammar it means to use a word as an aposto, in apposition.[6][10]

Timeline

  • 13th century – apõer “to impute” in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.[3][2]
  • c. 1430 – apoer in the Horto do Esposo (witness 1390–1437).[18]
  • 1550 – the participle aposto in a private letter.[19]
  • 1600s – first record of aposta “bet”, the participle used as a noun.[5]
  • 1952 – a survey in Portugal records apor “to yoke oxen to a cart”.[14]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To put next to or on top of; to juxtapose, apply: Apôs uma etiqueta em cada frasco.[6][20]
  2. To affix a signature (assinatura), seal or fingerprint to a document, law or treaty.[6][9][15]
  3. To add (one thing to another): Apôs duas notas ao relatório.[6][9]
  4. (formal) To yoke or hitch (oxen to a cart, a horse to the shafts).[6][16]
  5. (grammar) To use (a noun phrase) in apposition.[6][10]
  6. (regional, Bragança) To impute, attribute.[14]

Word family

  • aposto
  • aposta
  • apostar
  • pôr
  • aposição
  • apositivo
  • Latin appōnō
  • Galician apoñer
  • Spanish aponer

Usage notes

Aurélio and Aulete warn against confusing apôs "he affixed" with the adverb após "after", and the participle aposto /ô/ with aposto "I bet", from apostar.[9][20]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e 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. apõer
  3. ^ a b c d Machado, José Pedro (1987), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., 5 vols., Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, p. s.v. apor
  4. ^ 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. apoer
  5. ^ a b c Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. apor
  6. ^ 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. apor
  7. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. apor
  8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. appōnō
  9. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. apor
  10. ^ 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. apor
  11. ^ 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. aponer
  12. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. appondre
  13. ^ Lopes, Graça Videira; Ferreira, Manuel Pedro et al. (2011–), Cantigas Medievais Galego-Portuguesas [online database], Lisboa: Instituto de Estudos Medievais, FCSH/NOVA, https://cantigas.fcsh.unl.pt, p. s.v. apoer
  14. ^ a b c d 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. apor
  15. ^ a b 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. apor
  16. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. apor
  17. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 813
  18. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. apoer
  19. ^ 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. apor
  20. ^ 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. apor

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Apor.” Etymologically, 15 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/pt/apor. Accessed 16 Nov. 2026.

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