atingir

Forms

atingir (first-person singular present atinjo, first-person singular preterite atingi, past participle atingido)^[1] In the 19th century it was often spelt attingir: Vieira (1871) heads the word so, and Figueiredo (1899) and Silva Bastos (1912) give atingir as the same word.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin attingō (“to touch, reach”), from ad- and tangō (“to touch”).^{[5][6][7][8][1]} Nascentes calls it semi-learned.^[9]

The Latin verb lives on in Italian attingere and Romanian atinge, while a variant Vulgar Latin *attangō, remade on the simple verb, gave French atteindre, Catalan atènyer and Spanish atañer.^[10][11][12] Spanish also has a learned atingir.^[13]

De Vaan derives the simple verb from a nasal present Proto-Indo-European *th₂-n-g- (“to touch”), cognate with Ancient Greek τεταγών (tetagṓn, “having seized”).^[14] Wiktionary writes the root *teh₂g-.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Machado's 14th-century quotation, from the Corte Imperial, uses it of the mind: o entendimento per duas guysas atinge aquello que entende “the understanding grasps in two ways what it understands”.^[7] Houaiss and Cunha also date the verb to the 14th century.^[5][6]

Semantic evolution

Vieira (1871) gives “to touch, reach, attain, perceive, understand”, with a quotation of Manuel Bernardes in which the spirit attingia as perfeições do amado “attained the perfections of the beloved”.^[2] The original Caldas Aulete has “to touch lightly, reach with the hand”, “to understand” and “to obtain”.^[15]

Modern Portuguese uses it above all for reaching a place, level or goal, and for hitting a target or affecting someone: a measure that atinge a group concerns it, and a blow or an insult that atinge a person hurts them.^[5][16] The old sense “to understand” survives.^[5][1] Cunha dates atingível and inatingível to 1844, and his addenda to 1836.^[6]

Timeline

• 14th century – atinge in the Corte Imperial.^[7]
• 1836 – attingivel and inattingivel in Constâncio's dictionary, as Cunha reports.^[6]
• 1871 – Vieira heads the verb attingir.^[2]
• 1899 – Figueiredo enters atingir as a variant of attingir.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To reach, touch: to get as far as a point, object or person: Não chego a atingir o tecto.^[5][17][1]
2. (transitive) To hit a target; to strike or damage.^[5][16][1]
3. (transitive, figurative) To achieve, attain a goal.^[5][17]
4. (transitive or with a) To amount to, rise to a level or figure.^[5][15]
5. (transitive) To live to an age or date.^[5]
6. (transitive, figurative) To concern, affect, extend to: A medida atinge todos os reformados.^[5][18]
7. (transitive, figurative) To offend, hurt someone.^[5]
8. (transitive, intransitive or with a) To understand, grasp.^[5][1][19]

Word family

• atingível
• inatingível

Related words

• tanger
• Latin attingō
• Spanish atañer

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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, 652
3. ^ a b Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. 148
4. ^ Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. atingir
5. ^ 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. atingir
6. ^ a b c d Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. atingir
7. ^ a b c Machado, José Pedro (1987), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., 5 vols., Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, p. s.v. atingir
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. atingir
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
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. atañer
12. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. atteindre
13. ^ 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. atingir
14. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
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. atingir
16. ^ 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. atingir
17. ^ a b Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. atingir
18. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 1066
19. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. atingir