botar

Forms

botar (first-person singular present boto, first-person singular preterite botei, past participle botado)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Old French boter (“to strike, push, put”), modern French bouter, from Frankish *bōtan (“to push, strike”).^[2][3][4][1] Houaiss dates the Old French verb to about 1100 and reconstructs the Frankish one by comparing Middle Low German bōten, Old English bēatan and Old Norse bauta.^[2] Wiktionary writes the Frankish verb *bautan and takes it from Proto-Germanic *bautaną (“to beat”), the source of English beat;^[1][5] Orel calls the Germanic verb of unknown origin.^[1][5]

Corominas and the Aurélio take the Spanish and Portuguese verbs through the old Gascon form botar.^[6][7] Machado, more cautiously, sets the Portuguese verb beside the Provençal one, Italian buttare and Spanish botar and thinks that the Italian, the Spanish and perhaps the Portuguese verb come from French.^[8] Nascentes took it from Provençal, and Bluteau already derived it from French in 1712.^[9][10] The DHLF dates the Spanish loan to about 1250 and the Portuguese one to the 14th century.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss and Cunha date the first record to the 14th century, and Machado cites two records of that century.^[2][3][8] The glossary of the Galician-Portuguese cantigas gives it the sense “to throw out”.^[12]

Semantic evolution

Pereira in 1697 glosses botar as “to throw” (Latin eiicio, expello), and Bluteau in 1712 has throwing someone out of a place, laying one thing on another and botar um navio ao mar “to launch a ship”.^[13][10] Folqman adds botar a fugir “to take to flight” and a horse that throws its rider, and Morais in 1789 botar ferro “to drop anchor” and a cape that bota “stretches out” towards a point of the compass.^[14][15] Aulete's original dictionary notes that botar has the senses of deitar and pôr but is less polite.^[16] In Brazil it became the everyday verb for “to put” (in clothes, food, eggs), and Houaiss marks most of its senses informal.^[2][1] Corominas notes that the old sense “to throw” survives in Leonese, Galician-Portuguese and American Spanish, while in Spain botar is now said of ships and balls.^[6] In Pernambuco it is said of a snake or alligator that strikes.^[17]

Timeline

• 14th century – first record.^[2][3][8]
• 1697 – Pereira glosses botar as lançar “to throw”.^[13]
• 1712 – Bluteau derives it from French bouter.^[10]
• 1789 – Morais records botar ferro and botar a perder.^[15]
• 1899 – Figueiredo takes it from Low Latin botare, of Germanic origin.^[18]

Meanings

Verb

1. To throw out, expel: Botaram-no do bar.^[2][7]
2. To throw, hurl; to throw down.^[2][1]
3. (informal) To give off (a liquid or gas): A panela bota vapor.^[2][7]
4. (informal) To pour or put into: botar açúcar no café.^[2]
5. To lay (eggs).^[2][1]
6. (botar-se) To throw oneself into (an undertaking); to set off.^[2][19]
7. (Brazil) To lay (the blame) on someone.^[2]
8. To stretch out into the sea (of a cape or headland).^[2][19]
9. (informal) To put, place: Bota a mala no carro.^[2][1]
10. (informal) To put on (clothes, shoes).^[2][7]
11. (informal) To set up (a shop, a business).^[2][7]
12. (informal) To put into another language or form; to translate (traduzir).^[2]
13. (Azores, informal) To escape.^[1]

Related words

• French bouter
• Spanish botar
• English beat

Usage notes

Houaiss records a separate verb botar, from 13th-century botado, formed from boto “blunt, faded” with -ar: “to blunt (an edge)”, from the 16th century “to fade” (as desbotar), “to dull (the mind)”, and of wine “to turn sour or cloudy”.^[2] Cardoso's dictionary of 1569 already glosses Botar with Latin hebeto “to blunt”.^[20] The DLP and the Aurélio mark it obsolete, as a synonym of embotar.^[4][7]

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 r Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. botar
3. ^ a b c Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. botar
4. ^ 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. botar
5. ^ a b Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 40
6. ^ a b Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 639
7. ^ a b c d e f Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. botar
8. ^ a b c Machado, José Pedro (1987), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., 5 vols., Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, p. s.v. botar
9. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 76
10. ^ a b c Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. botar
11. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. bouter
12. ^ 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. botar
13. ^ 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. botar
14. ^ Folqman, Carlos (1755), Diccionario portuguez, e latino, Lisboa: Régia Officina Silviana (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. botar
15. ^ 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, 192
16. ^ 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. botar
17. ^ Navarro, Fred (2004), Dicionário do Nordeste, São Paulo: Estação Liberdade, p. s.v. botar
18. ^ Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. s.v. botar
19. ^ a b 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. botar
20. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. botar