assegurar

Forms

assegurar (first-person singular present asseguro, first-person singular preterite assegurei, past participle assegurado)^[1] The medieval spelling was asegurar, with one s;^[2][3] Cunha dates it to the 14th century and the spelling assegurar to the 16th.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is probably inherited from Vulgar Latin *assēcūrō (“to make safe”), a verb formed on Latin sēcūrus (“free from care, safe”).^[3][2][4][1] Houaiss notes that the verb is recorded in Medieval Latin around the year 1000 in the sense “to protect, to put in safety”.^[3] Wiktionary puts its first Medieval Latin records in the 12th century, as a word taken back from Romance.^[3][1] Lorenzo's glossary of the Galician chronicle of Spain also assumes a Vulgar Latin verb, because the word is found across the Romance languages.^[5] The Portuguese dictionaries of the Academia and the Porto Editora instead analyse it as formed from Portuguese a- + seguro + -ar.^[6][7]

The same verb is Italian assicurare, French assurer, Occitan assegurar and Spanish asegurar; the REW counts Romanian asigura as a later new formation.^[8][1] The Latin adjective is formed from sē- (“without”) and cūra (“care”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss and Cunha date the first Portuguese record to the 14th century, in the spelling asegurar.^[3][2] The Galician Crónica Geral has asegurandome pola postura que el fezo comigo “feeling reassured by the agreement he had made with me”, and its glossary gives the senses “to make safe, to make firm, to calm down”, beside the simple verb segurar.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The older sense of calming and reassuring someone is still the one the first dictionaries give: Cardoso's of 1569 translates the verb with Latin quiesco “to rest”, and Pereira in 1697 explains it as taking away someone's fear.^[9][10] Bluteau (1712–1728) defines it as “to affirm as a certain thing”, with segurar as an equivalent, and Folqman (1755) adds the insuring of shipped goods.^[11][12] Morais (1789) puts the commercial sense first: to take on, for a premium, the payment of a loss.^[13] Today the main senses are “to guarantee” and “to assert with certainty”, while the insurance sense is rare and usually expressed by segurar.^[3][14]

Timeline

• 14th century – first records, spelt asegurar.^[3][2]
• 1500 – asegurar in a private letter.^[15]
• 16th century – the spelling assegurar.^[2]
• 1569 – Cardoso's dictionary renders it with Latin quiesco.^[9]
• 1697 – Pereira glosses it “to take away someone's fear”.^[10]
• 1755 – Folqman records the sense “to insure goods shipped”.^[12]
• 1789 – Morais lists the insurance sense first, then “to assert”.^[13]

Meanings

Verb

1. To make certain or secure; to guarantee: A nova lei assegura o acesso de todos à escola.^[3][14][1]
2. To assure someone of something; to state with certainty, to asseverate (asseverar): Assegurou-me que chegaria a tempo.^[3][14][16]
3. To approve or confirm according to the rules; to ratify.^[3]
4. (rare) To insure (property, a person) by contract.^[3][16]
5. (reflexive) To make sure, to find out for certain.^[16][7]
6. (reflexive) To rely on; to hold on, steady oneself.^[16][17]

Related words

• segurar
• seguro
• segurança
• Latin sēcūrus
• Spanish asegurar

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 Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. seguro
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. assegurar
4. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. assegurar
5. ^ a b 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. asegurar
6. ^ 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. assegurar
7. ^ a b Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 1005
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 720
9. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. assegurar
10. ^ 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. assegurar
11. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. assegurar
12. ^ a b Folqman, Carlos (1755), Diccionario portuguez, e latino, Lisboa: Régia Officina Silviana (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. assegurar
13. ^ 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, 129
14. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. assegurar
15. ^ 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. assegurar
16. ^ a b c d Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. assegurar
17. ^ 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. assegurar