aprovar

Forms

aprovar (first-person singular present aprovo, first-person singular preterite aprovei, past participle aprovado)^[1] Medieval texts write aprouado (14th century), aprouar and aprouuar (15th century).^[2] Pereira (1697), Bluteau and Morais write approvar, the spelling used until the reforms of 1911 in Portugal and 1943 in Brazil.^[3][4][5][1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin approbō (“to approve, commend; to prove”).^[2][6][7][1] Nascentes takes it as a semi-learned word.^[8] The Latin verb is formed from ad- (“to, towards”) and probō (“to test; to approve”), itself from probus (“good, fit”).^[1][9]

The same Latin verb is Galician aprobar, Spanish aprobar, Catalan aprovar, French approuver and Italian approvare.^[10][1] The French verb was borrowed from Latin and fitted to the shape of prouver.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss dates the participle aprouado to the 14th century from Cunha's index of medieval Portuguese, and the infinitive to the 15th;^[2][6] Cunha gives the 15th century.^[2][6] Machado quotes a 15th-century chronicle, which he cites as Condest., where someone leaves for Castile aprouando o que delle deziã “approving what was said of him”.^[7] In Galician the oldest records in Lorenzo's chronology are aprovavan in 1416–1422 and aprobada in 1435, and a notarial book of Rianxo has lo aprouo e rretefico “I approve and ratify it”.^[12]

Semantic evolution

The first sense is “to judge good, agree with”.^[2] From it come “to authorise, consent to” and, in law, “to sanction” a bill or a will.^[2] Bluteau defines it as to judge something well done or well said, worthy of praise.^[4] Morais adds “to authorise, confirm”, with the example of approving a will.^[5] The school sense, “to pass a candidate in an examination”, is in Figueiredo's dictionary of 1899.^[13]

An old sense “to prove, put to the test”, the sense of provar, is recorded by Vieira, who quotes Jorge Ferreira de Vasconcelos: prosperity wins friends, adversity tests them (as adversas os approvam).^[14] Caldas Aulete marks it as old, and Michaelis still lists it.^[15][16] Houaiss also has an intransitive use, of a machine or a method: “to prove good, work well”.^[2]

Timeline

• 14th century – the participle aprouado in a text of Cunha's index.^[2]
• 15th century – aprovar, aprouar and aprouuar;^[2][7] Machado's quotation from the Condest.^[2][7]
• 1430 – aprouado in the Horto do Esposo (witness 1390–1437).^[17]
• 1569 – Cardoso's dictionary heads the word Aprouar.^[18]
• 1611 – Barbosa writes Aprovar.^[19]
• 1697 – Pereira's Thesouro has Approvar.^[3]
• 1871 – Vieira separates the current sense from an old “to prove, test”.^[14]
• 1899 – Figueiredo records “to pass a student in an examination”.^[13]

Meanings

Verb

1. To approve of, judge good, right or fitting; to agree with.^[2][1][20]
2. To applaud, praise.^[2]
3. To authorise, allow, consent to.^[2][21]
4. To pass (a candidate) in an examination or competition; intransitively, of a teacher, to pass students.^[2][22]
5. (law) To sanction (a bill); to make (a will) legally valid.^[2][16]
6. (intransitive) To prove good, work well, of a machine or method.^[2]
7. (obsolete) To prove, put to the test.^[15][14]

Word family

• aprovação
• aprovado
• desaprovar

Related words

• provar
• comprovar
• Latin approbō
• Spanish aprobar

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. aprovar
3. ^ a b Pereira, Bento (1697), Thesouro da lingoa portuguesa, in the 1697 edition of his Prosodia (1st ed. 1647; CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. approvar
4. ^ 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. approvar
5. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 1, 162
6. ^ a b c Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. provar
7. ^ a b c d Machado, José Pedro (1987), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., 5 vols., Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, p. s.v. aprovar
8. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. aprovar
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
11. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
12. ^ 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. aprouar
13. ^ a b Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. 114
14. ^ a b c 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, 505
15. ^ 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. aprovar
16. ^ a b 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. aprovar
17. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. aprouado
18. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. aprouar
19. ^ Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. aprovar
20. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. aprovar
21. ^ Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. aprovar
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. aprovar