benzer

Forms

benzer (first-person singular present benzo, first-person singular preterite benzi, past participle benzido, short past participle bento)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote bẽeizer, beeyzer and beenzer.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin benedīcō (“to speak well of; to bless”), written Old Galician-Portuguese bẽeizer in the oldest texts and Old Galician-Portuguese beenzer in the 14th century.^[2][3][5][1] Nascentes, after Cornu, also lists Old Galician-Portuguese beezer among the steps from the oldest form to the modern one.^[6] The verb is the popular outcome of the Latin word, and bendizer is its learned doublet.^[2][1]

The same Latin word is Galician beicer, Spanish bendecir, French bénir and Italian benedire.^[6][1][7] The Latin verb combines bene (“well”) and dīcō (“to say”), and its parts were often written apart; with the dative it meant “to speak well of, praise”, and in Church Latin it took an accusative object and the sense “to bless”.^[8][9][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantigas de Santa Maria (no. 38) speak of arms raised en maneira de bẽeizer “in the manner of blessing”, and the Crónica Geral has the gerund in beeyzendo muyto o nume de deus “greatly blessing the name of God”.^[4] Machado's first quotation, from the 14th-century Relaçam da Vida da Gloriosa Santa Isabel, asks que elrey beenzesse seu filho “that the king should bless his son”.^[5] From the first records the verb meant to bless and to invoke God's favour.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Machado finds benzer itself already in another 14th-century document.^[5] Morais (1789) adds the reflexive benzer-se “to cross oneself” and the colloquial benzer-se de alguém “to shun someone as something evil”.^[11] Later dictionaries add the sense of folk healing, fazer benzeduras “to cure with prayers and gestures”, and the figurative “to be astonished”.^[12][13][14]

Houaiss and Machado date the learned doublet bendizer differently: Houaiss to the 14th century, Machado to the 15th.^[15][5] The verb passed into Nheengatu as benzeri.^[1]

Timeline

• 13th century – first records, spelt beeizer.^[2][3]
• 14th century – the spellings beenzer and benzer.^[2][5]
• 1513 – benzer in the Livro dos Mártires.^[16]
• c. 1543 – first record of the derivative benzedeira.^[17]
• 1569 – Cardoso's dictionary renders Benzer by Latin benedico.^[18]
• 1789 – Morais records benzer-se “to cross oneself”; the derivative benzedura is first listed in the same dictionary.^[11][19]

Meanings

Verb

1. To bless: to invoke God's grace on someone or something, usually making the sign of the cross in the air.^[2][14]
2. To consecrate a person or thing to the worship of God: benzer uma capela.^[2][20]
3. To sprinkle with holy water (água benta) something not meant for worship, to call God's protection on it: benzer um barco.^[2][21]
4. To favour, make prosperous: Deus o benza.^[2][14]
5. To treat with benzeduras, the prayers and gestures of folk healing; also intransitive.^[14][13]
6. (reflexive) To cross oneself.^[13][22]
7. (reflexive, figurative) To be astonished; to feel relieved or rewarded after a hard time.^[2][13]

Word family

• benzedura
• benzedeiro
• bento

Related words

• bendizer
• bênção
• abençoar
• bendito

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 j Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. benzer
3. ^ a b c d Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. benzer
4. ^ 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. bẽeizer
5. ^ a b c d e Machado, José Pedro (1987), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., 5 vols., Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, p. s.v. benzer
6. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. s.v. benzer
7. ^ 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. bendecir
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. benedico
9. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. benedico
10. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. benedicere
11. ^ 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, 179
12. ^ Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. benzer
13. ^ a b c d Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. benzer
14. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. benzer
15. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. bendizer
16. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. benzer
17. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. benzedeiro
18. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. benzer
19. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. benzedura
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. benzer
21. ^ 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. benzer
22. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 1350