aportar

Forms

aportar (first-person singular present aporto, first-person singular preterite aportei, past participle aportado)^[1]

Etymology

Houaiss, Machado and the DLP take it as formed from Portuguese a- + porto + -ar, “to come into port”.^[2][3][4][5] Cunha, Aurélio and Wiktionary derive it instead from apportō (“to bring, carry”), a compound of ad- and portō (“to carry”), and Nascentes calls it a semi-learned form of that Latin verb.^{[6][7][1][8][9]} The base noun is from Latin portus (“harbour, entrance”).^[10]

Spanish has the same split: the DLE gives one Spanish aportar “to come into port” from puerto, and another “to bring, contribute” from the Latin verb.^[11] Portuguese expresses the second meaning with the noun aporte, which Houaiss takes from French apport.^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in a Portuguese legal text of 1211, which rules on what happens if a ship is wrecked na naue ou no nauio que aportase na Ribeyra ou en algũu porto “in the ship or vessel that put in at the Ribeira or in any port”.^[3][13] The Cantigas de Santa Maria use it for a ship that aportou na foz / de Roma “came into port at the river mouth of Rome”.^[13]

Semantic evolution

The medieval texts use the verb mostly as intransitive “to land, to make port”, as in the Crónica Troiana and a cantiga d'escarnho of Afonso Eanes do Coton.^[13][6] Morais (1789) gives a transitive “to bring into port” and the figurative “to bring someone somewhere”, citing sua fortuna o aportou no valle da perdição “his fortune brought him to the valley of perdition”.^[14] Vieira adds “to arrive somewhere other than by sea”, with a quotation from Camões's Lusíadas.^[15] Caldas Aulete has the nautical phrase aportar âncora, to lay out an anchor at a distance so that the ship can be hauled to it.^[16]

Timeline

• 1211 – aportase in a Portuguese legal text.^[3][13]
• 13th century – aportou in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[13]
• 1569 – Cardoso renders Aportar with Latin appello.^[17]
• 1611 – Barbosa glosses it tomar porto “to make port”.^[18]
• 1789 – Morais adds the transitive senses “to bring into port” and “to lead somewhere”.^[14]

Meanings

Verb

1. (nautical) To come into port or to a point of the coast; to anchor: O barco aportou em Setúbal.^[2][1][19]
2. (nautical, transitive) To bring someone or something into a port: O navio aportou os feridos em Lisboa.^[2][7]
3. To arrive somewhere, not necessarily by water: Depois de muito andar, aportou numa aldeia.^[2][4]
4. (figurative) To lead, to bring someone or something to a place or state.^[2][7]

Related words

• porto
• portar
• aporte
• Latin portus
• Spanish aportar

Usage notes

Aportar âncora is a nautical phrase for setting an anchor so that the vessel can stop and take on or put off people or goods.^[2][16]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. aportar
3. ^ a b c Machado, José Pedro (1987), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., 5 vols., Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, p. s.v. aportar
4. ^ 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. aportar
5. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 815
6. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. aportar
7. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. aportar
8. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. aportar
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. apportō
10. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. porto
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. aportar
12. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. aporte
13. ^ 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. aportar
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, 97
15. ^ 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, 490
16. ^ 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. aportar
17. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. aportar
18. ^ Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. aportar
19. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. aportar