arar

Forms

arar (first-person singular present aro, first-person singular preterite arei, past participle arado)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin arō (“to plough”), written Old Galician-Portuguese arar in the oldest texts.^[2][3][4][1] The same Latin verb is Galician arar, Spanish arar, Italian arare, Old French arer and Romanian ara.^[5][1] The REW notes that the Old French verb has almost died out even in the dialects.^[5]

The Latin verb goes back to *araō, from *h₂éryeti, a present of the root *h₂erh₃- (“to plough”).^[1][6] Its cognates include ἀρόω (aróō) and árti, all meaning “to plough”.^[6][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Lorenzo dates the verb to the 13th century, against Machado's 14th: the Cantigas de Santa Maria have en un campo u aradores con seus boys ali aravan “in a field where ploughmen were ploughing with their oxen”.^[8] Machado's first record is from the Portuguese Livro de Esopo: o boy pequeno aprende de arar do gramde “the small ox learns to plough from the big one”.^[4]

Semantic evolution

Johan Garcia de Guilhade's ess' é que foi con os lobos arar “that is the one who went ploughing with the wolves” uses a phrase meaning “to act foolishly”.^[8][9] The poetic “to plough the sea”, to sail, follows Latin usage: Barbosa gives Latin arare aequor for it, and Bluteau quotes Camões on seas never ploughed by ships.^[10][11] Morais adds “to tear the body with iron combs”, the source of the figurative sense “to wound”.^[12][2]

The derivatives arada “ploughed land” and arador “ploughman” date from the 13th century, aradura from the 17th.^[3] Arado “plough” is not from the verb but from Latin arātrum.^[3]

Timeline

• 13th century – aradores… aravan in the Cantigas de Santa Maria;^[4] arada and arador first recorded.^[8][3]
• 14th century – o boy pequeno aprende de arar in the Livro de Esopo.^[4]
• 1569 – Cardoso renders arar by Latin aro.^[13]
• 1611 – Barbosa notes the poetic sense “to sail”.^[10]
• 1734 – Feijó records that many places call ploughed fields aradas.^[14]
• 1789 – Morais adds “to tear the body with iron combs”.^[12]
• 1899 – Figueiredo records a separate verb arar “to be starving”, from ar.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To plough: to turn the soil with a plough (arado), preparing it for sowing; lavrar.^[2][15][1]
2. (figurative) To cut through (the waters); to sail.^[2][15]
3. (figurative) To cut, wound or scratch, in body or in spirit.^[2][16]
4. (figurative) To run down and leave furrows on: As rugas aravam-lhe a testa.^[2][17]
5. (regional) To toil, to get something only with great effort.^[18]

Word family

• arada
• arador
• aradura
• aração
• arável

Related words

• arado
• aratório
• Latin arō
• Galician arar

Usage notes

Houaiss and the Academia's dictionary have a second verb arar, formed from ar “air”: “to be out of breath”, in Brazil “to be in trouble” and “to be very hungry”, in Madeira “to long for something to happen”.^[2][17] Houaiss dates it from Figueiredo's dictionary of 1899, for the sense “to be starving”.^[2][17][19]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. arar
3. ^ a b c d Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. arar
4. ^ a b c d Machado, José Pedro (1987), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., 5 vols., Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, p. s.v. arar
5. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
6. ^ 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
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c 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. arar
9. ^ 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. arar
10. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. arar
11. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. arar
12. ^ 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, 106
13. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. arar
14. ^ Feijó, João de Morais Madureira (1734), Orthographia, ou Arte de escrever, e pronunciar com acerto a lingua portugueza, Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. arar
15. ^ a b Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. arar
16. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. arar
17. ^ 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. arar
18. ^ 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. arar
19. ^ 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. arar