caminhar

Forms

caminhar (first-person singular present caminho, first-person singular preterite caminhei, past participle caminhado)^[1] Houaiss records the 15th-century spellings caminhar and camjnhar.^[2] A regional variant camiar was noted in Portugal in 1970.^[3]

Etymology

It is formed from Portuguese caminho + -ar, from the noun for “way, road”.^[2][4][5][1] Wiktionary also traces it directly to Vulgar Latin *camminō, the verb that underlies Italian camminare and French cheminer as well.^[1] The same verb is Galician camiñar, Spanish caminar and Catalan caminar.^[1][6]

Caminho itself goes back to *camminus, a word that Houaiss and Cunha consider of Celtic origin and Wiktionary derives from Gaulish.^[7][8][1] Vieira explained the ⟨nh⟩ of this verb, as of adivinhar, as a palatalised /n/ between vowels.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss dates the verb to the 15th century from Cunha's index of medieval Portuguese, with the meaning “to go along a way on foot”.^[2] In the CTA corpus it is first found in the Memorial da Infanta Santa Joana, in a witness from after 1525.^[10]

Semantic evolution

Cardoso's dictionary of 1569 renders it with Latin iter facio “to make a journey”, and Morais (1789) defines it as walking, making one's way or a day's journey.^[11][12] In the 19th century the dictionaries add the sense “to sail”, said of a ship covering a distance.^[13][14]

The figurative senses “to progress, to advance” and “to tend towards (an outcome)” are now among the commonest: a business or a lawsuit caminha when it moves forward.^[2][4][15] In some Portuguese dialects the verb came to mean simply “to leave, go away”, and in others “to hurry”.^[3]

Timeline

• 1400s – first records, spelt caminhar and camjnhar.^[2]
• c. 1525 – the Memorial da Infanta Santa Joana uses the verb.^[10]
• 1569 – Cardoso's dictionary glosses it with Latin iter facio.^[11]
• 1697 – Pereira gives Latin ambulo and iter facere.^[16]
• 1789 – Morais: “to walk, make one's way, a day's journey”.^[12]
• 1813 – Cunha's date for the verb, from the second edition of Morais.^[8]
• 1939 – the sense “to leave” is recorded in Madeira.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. To walk; to go along a way on foot, or cover a distance walking: Caminhámos três horas pela serra.^[2][4][1]
2. To make one's way towards a place; to head for.^[2][4]
3. (figurative) To progress, go forward, advance: A obra caminha devagar.^[2][4][15]
4. (figurative) To tend towards an outcome.^[2][4]
5. (figurative) To spread freely, meeting no obstacle.^[2][17]
6. (nautical) To sail; of a vessel, to cover a distance.^[2][4]

Word family

• caminhada
• caminhante

Related words

• caminho
• encaminhar
• Galician camiñar
• Spanish caminar

Usage notes

In Madeira caminhar was used for “to leave, go out”; the 1939 survey that noted it compared the local camone, from the English come on.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. caminhar
3. ^ a b c d Instituto da Lingua Galega, Tesouro do léxico patrimonial galego e portugués (TLPGP), Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, https://ilg.usc.gal/tesouro, p. s.v. caminhar
4. ^ a b c d e f g Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. caminhar
5. ^ 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. caminhar
6. ^ 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. caminar
7. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. caminho
8. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. caminho
9. ^ 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, 156
10. ^ a b Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. caminhar
11. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. caminhar
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, 221
13. ^ 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. caminhar
14. ^ Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. caminhar
15. ^ a b Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 1708
16. ^ 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. caminhar
17. ^ 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. caminhar