cambiar

Forms

cambiar (first-person singular present cambio, first-person singular preterite cambiei, past participle cambiado)^[1] Houaiss's historical forms are canbar (1261), cambiar and cambhyar (13th century), cãbhar and cambear (14th century).^[2] The Cantigas de Santa Maria write both cambiar and canbiar.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin cambiō (“to exchange”), written Old Galician-Portuguese cambiar in the 13th century.^[2][4][1] The Latin verb is rare and late, first in Apuleius, beside an older form of the fourth conjugation.^[5][6][1] It is of Gaulish origin: Cunha connects it with a Celtic root Proto-Celtic *kamb- (“bent, crooked”) and hence “alternated, exchanged”, and Nocentini compares Old Irish camb “crooked”.^[4][7][5]

Houaiss says that until the middle of the 16th century the verb lived beside its divergent form cambar, which then fell out of use in this sense, and that from the 17th century Italian cambiare gave it the sense “to exchange money”.^[2][8] The same Latin verb is Spanish cambiar (recorded from 1068), Galician cambiar, Catalan canviar, Occitan cambiar and Old French changier.^[9][7][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Latin charters already use the word in 1090 (canbiauimus, “we exchanged”) and 1102.^[3] Houaiss's first Portuguese date is 1261, for the form canbar.^[2] In the cantigas it means “to exchange” and “to change”: King Denis mocks a man who had swapped his nag for a mule (o avia por mua cambiado), and the Cantigas de Santa Maria tell of a man who changed his loves from one to another and of a colour that turned black.^[3][10]

Semantic evolution

The Cantigas de Santa Maria already speak of a money-changer (canbiador) who exchanged a great quantity of wealth.^[3] Cardoso (1569) glosses cambiar as “to put out at exchange”, with Latin foenero “to lend at interest”, and Morais (1789) defines it as exchanging money for coin or bills at the current rate.^[11][12] Vieira (1871) calls the general sense “to exchange” antiquated.^[13] The dictionaries of the 19th century add “to shift through colours” and, in bullfighting, the câmbio pass.^[14][15] In Rio Grande do Sul, where the verb is shared with the Spanish of the Plate, cambiar a cevadura do mate means to change the subject or one's way of life.^[16]

Timeline

• 1090 – canbiauimus in a Latin charter.^[3]
• 1261 – canbar, Houaiss's first date.^[2]
• 13th century – cambiar in the cantigas of King Denis and Paio Soares de Taveirós.^[10]
• 1542 – cambear in a private letter.^[17]
• 1569 – Cardoso: “to put out at exchange”.^[11]
• 1611 – Barbosa glosses it with Latin permuto.^[18]
• 1789 – Morais defines it as changing money at the rate of exchange.^[12]

Meanings

Verb

1. To exchange, give and receive in return: Os dois cambiaram cartas durante anos.^[2][1]
2. To change money of one country for that of another; to deal in foreign exchange (câmbio): Cambiou os reais em euros no aeroporto.^[2][19]
3. To change in appearance or colour, especially gradually: As nuvens cambiavam ao pôr do sol.^[2][20]
4. (figurative) To transform, turn into something quite different.^[2][19]
5. (bullfighting) To perform the câmbio pass with a bull.^[20][21]

Word family

• cambiador
• cambiante
• recambiar

Related words

• câmbio
• cambar
• Spanish cambiar
• Italian cambiare

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 Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. cambiar
3. ^ a b c d e 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. cambiar
4. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. cambiar
5. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. cambiō
6. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. cambio
7. ^ a b Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier, p. s.v. cambiare
8. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. cambar
9. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cambiar
10. ^ a b 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. cambiar
11. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. cambiar
12. ^ 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, 220
13. ^ Vieira, Frei Domingos (1871–1874), Grande Diccionario Portuguez ou Thesouro da lingua portugueza, 5 vols., Porto: Ernesto Chardron e Bartholomeu H. de Moraes, p. 2, 63
14. ^ 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. cambiar
15. ^ Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. s.v. cambiar
16. ^ Schlee, Aldyr Garcia (2019), Dicionário da Cultura Pampeana Sul-Rio-Grandense, 2 vols., Pelotas: Fructos do Paiz, p. s.v. cambiar
17. ^ CLUL (ed.) (2014), P.S. Post Scriptum: Arquivo Digital de Escrita Quotidiana em Portugal e Espanha na Época Moderna, Lisboa: Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, http://ps.clul.ul.pt, p. s.v. cambiar
18. ^ Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. cambiar
19. ^ a b Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. cambiar
20. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. cambiar
21. ^ 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. cambiar