bulir

Forms

bulir (first-person singular present bulo, first-person singular preterite buli, past participle bulido)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote bolir and bulir; the 15th century also has abollyr.^[2][3][4] Pereira (1697) refers Bolir to Bulir, and Morais (1789) notes that both spellings were used.^[5][6] Bolir is still listed as a variant.^[1] The verb alternates its stem vowel: bulo, boles, bole, bulimos, bulis, bolem.^[7][8]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin bulliō (“to bubble, boil”), written Old Galician-Portuguese bolir and Old Galician-Portuguese bulir in the oldest texts.^{[2][9][1][10]} The Latin verb is formed from bulla (“bubble”).^[11][1] Wiktionary suggests that the noun may come from Proto-Indo-European *bew- (“to swell”).^[1]

The same Latin word is Galician bulir, Spanish bullir, Catalan bullir, Occitan bolir, French bouillir and Italian bollire.^[12][1] In those languages the verb mostly means “to boil”; in Portuguese the sense moved from boiling to stirring and moving, because boiling water moves, as Machado and Nascentes explain.^[9][13] A 14th-century Latin–Portuguese glossary still glosses the Latin verb with ferver “to boil” as well as with the Portuguese verb itself, which Machado takes as evidence of the old sense “to boil”.^[9] Corominas notes that the Galician verb has the wide sense “to move”, so that its imperative bule means “hurry up”.^[14]

Earliest recorded meaning

The oldest records are in the cantigas of Alfonso X. In the Cantigas de Santa Maria (no. 21) the Virgin brings a child back to life que o fez no leit' u jazia bolir “so that she made him stir in the bed where he lay”, and in a cantiga d'escarnho the king complains mais estas guerras nos fazen bulir “but these wars keep us on the move”.^[3][4] The meaning is already “to move, to stir”.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The Crónica Troiana uses the infinitive as a noun, o bolir das gentes “the commotion of the people”, and the chronicle of 1344 says that a man's heart is always bolindo e penssando “stirring and thinking”.^[3] From “to move slightly” came “to touch, to meddle with” (bulir em alguma coisa) and “to bother, to tease” (bulir com alguém), which Morais already records in 1789.^[15][2]

In north-eastern Brazil bulir com a girl means to seduce or deflower her.^[2][16] In Mozambique, and in Lisbon slang, the verb means “to work”.^[10][17] Salt workers in Portugal bolem a água, stirring the water of the salt pans.^[18] The proverb quem com muitas pedras bole, uma na cabeça lhe cai warns against stirring up trouble.^[8]

Timeline

• 13th century – bolir in the Cantigas de Santa Maria and bulir in a cantiga d'escarnho of Alfonso X.^[3][4][2]
• 1344 – bolindo “stirring” in the chronicle of 1344.^[3]
• 14th century – a Latin–Portuguese glossary renders Latin bullio by ferver bulir.^[9]
• 1569 – Cardoso renders Bulir by Latin moveo “I move”.^[19]
• 1697 – Pereira refers Bolir to Bulir.^[5]
• 1789 – Morais records “to bother someone” and “to touch something”, and calls the verb irregular.^[15][6]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive, pronominal) To move slightly, to stir (mexer); to shift position: O gato dormia sem se bulir.^[2][8][1]
2. (transitive) To move or shake lightly: O vento bulia as cortinas.^[2][8][7]
3. (transitive, with em) To touch, to meddle with: Não bulas nos papéis da mesa.^[2][8]
4. (transitive, with com) To bother, to tease or provoke: Os rapazes estavam sempre a bulir com ele.^[2][7][1]
5. (transitive, with com) To move emotionally, to affect: A carta buliu com ela.^[2][8]
6. (transitive, with em) To mention, to bring up a subject.^[2][8]
7. (intransitive) To palpitate (palpitar).^[17][20][1]
8. (north-eastern Brazil, with com) To seduce or deflower.^[2][16]
9. (Mozambique, Portugal, slang) To work (trabalhar).^[10][17][1]

Related words

• bulício
• rebuliço
• bolha
• Latin bulliō
• Spanish bullir

Usage notes

Houaiss records the set phrase bulir em casa de marimbondo “to stir up a wasps' nest”, to get into trouble.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. bulir
3. ^ a b c d e f 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. bolir
4. ^ a b c 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. bulir
5. ^ 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. bolir
6. ^ 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, 202
7. ^ a b c 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. bulir
8. ^ a b c d e f g Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. bulir
9. ^ a b c d Machado, José Pedro (1987), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., 5 vols., Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, p. s.v. bulir
10. ^ a b c 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. bulir
11. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. bulliō
12. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 1389
13. ^ 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. bulir
14. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 695
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, 187
16. ^ a b Navarro, Fred (2004), Dicionário do Nordeste, São Paulo: Estação Liberdade, p. s.v. bulir
17. ^ a b c Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. bulir
18. ^ 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. bulir
19. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. bulir
20. ^ Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. s.v. bulir