atender

Forms

atender (first-person singular present atendo, first-person singular preterite atendi, past participle atendido)^[1] Houaiss records atender and ateder in the 13th century and attemder in the 14th.^[2] Before the reforms it was often written attender, the spelling under which Vieira defines it.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin attendō (“to stretch towards; to pay attention”), written Old Galician-Portuguese atender in the oldest texts.^[2][4][5][1] Nascentes thinks it came down by a semi-learned route.^[6]

The same Latin verb is Spanish atender, Galician atender, Catalan atendre, Italian attendere and French attendre.^[7][1] The DHLF notes that Italian, Spanish and Old Occitan have only the mental sense of the Latin verb, while French developed “to wait”.^[8] Old Galician-Portuguese had “to wait” too, beside “to pay heed to”.^[9]

The Latin verb is formed from ad- and tendō (“to stretch, extend”).^[10][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Machado's first record is a 13th-century cantiga of Joan Soayrez Somesso: e atender / de poder hir hu ela foi “and wait to be able to go where she went”.^[5] In the cantigas the usual sense is “to wait, await”, as in Bernal de Bonaval's Vim atender meu amigo “I came to wait for my love”.^[11][12] Documents of 1315 and 1330 cited by Viterbo also have “to wait”.^[13]

Semantic evolution

Beside “to wait”, the Cancioneiro da Ajuda already has “to pay attention to”.^[9] Morais in 1813 still glosses the verb “to wait”, but the modern senses grew from the second: to heed, to take into account, to receive and listen to someone, to grant a request.^[14][2][15] The original Aulete has “to give audience” and “to take care of”.^[15]

Modern dictionaries add the service senses: to answer the telephone or the door, to serve a customer, to see a patient.^[2][1] Cunha dates atendente “attendant” to the 20th century and atendível to the 19th.^[4]

Timeline

• 1200s – first records, in the sense “to wait”.^[2][5]
• 1315 – atender “to wait” in a document of Vairão, and in one of 1330 from Porto.^[13]
• c. 1430 – the Horto do Esposo (copied 1390–1437) uses the verb.^[16]
• 1569 – Cardoso translates it with Latin attendo and animadverto “to notice”.^[17]
• 1600s – first record of desatender.^[4]
• 1813 – Morais glosses atender as “to wait”.^[14]
• 1900s – first record of atendente.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To pay atenção to, heed: atender aos conselhos do médico.^[2][18][19]
2. To take into account, consider.^[2][20][1]
3. To answer (the telephone, the door, a call).^[2][15][1]
4. To receive and listen to someone; to give an audience.^[2][15]
5. To serve (a customer, a table).^[2][1]
6. To see and examine (a patient): o médico atende às terças.^[2][15]
7. To meet, satisfy (needs, requirements).^[2][1]
8. To grant (a request).^[2][19]
9. To help, come to the aid of.^[2]
10. To obey, do as one is told.^[2]
11. To wait attentively.^[2][21]

Word family

• atendimento
• atendente
• atendível
• desatender

Related words

• atenção
• atento
• tender
• Latin attendō
• Spanish atender

Usage notes

Atender por means “to answer to the name of”: a dog or a person who atende por a certain name.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m 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 q Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. atender
3. ^ 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, 637
4. ^ a b c d Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. atender
5. ^ a b c Machado, José Pedro (1987), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., 5 vols., Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, p. s.v. atender
6. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. atender
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. attendre
9. ^ 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. atender
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ 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. atender
12. ^ 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. atender
13. ^ a b Viterbo, Joaquim de Santa Rosa de (1798–1799), Elucidario das palavras, termos e frases que em Portugal antiguamente se usárão, 2 vols., Lisboa: Simão Thaddeo Ferreira, p. 1, 147
14. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 1, 222
15. ^ a b c d e 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. atender
16. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. atender
17. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. atender
18. ^ Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. atender
19. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. atender
20. ^ 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. atender
21. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 1058