castigar

Forms

castigar (first-person singular present castigo, first-person singular preterite castiguei, past participle castigado)^[1] Houaiss records the spellings castegar (14th century) and castyguar (15th century).^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin castīgō (“to reprove, correct, chastise”), written Old Galician-Portuguese castigar in the oldest texts.^[2][3][1] Wiktionary adds that it may have been an early borrowing rather than a popular word, and Corominas calls the Spanish castigar, first recorded about 950 in the Glosas de San Millán, a word taken from Latin.^[1][4]

The same Latin verb is Galician castigar, Catalan castigar, Italian castigare and French châtier; in Romanian, Romanian câștiga came to mean “to win, to earn”.^[5][1]

Wiktionary explains the Latin verb as formed from an unattested noun meaning “purity”, of the same root as castus (“chaste”), with the suffix -igō from agō (“to drive, do”): “to make pure”.^[1] Vieira and Figueiredo already derived it from the adjective and the verb for “to do”.^[6][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss and Cunha date the first records to the 13th century.^[2][3] In the cantigas the verb means “to admonish, to advise”: King Dinis writes e por en vos rog' e vos castigo “and so I beg you and warn you”, and the reflexive meant “to take warning, mend one's ways”.^[8][9][10] The Crónica Troiana has both “to discipline, instruct” and “to punish”: uos non sodes ja moço pequeno para castigar “you are no longer a little boy to be punished”.^[10]

Semantic evolution

In the medieval language the verb chiefly meant “to admonish, advise, instruct”, as in Spanish, where Corominas finds the Latin sense down to the 16th century.^[9][4] The noun castigo, a back-formation, and castigamento are as old as the verb.^[11][3]

Cardoso (1569) and Barbosa (1611) render it only with Latin verbs for “to punish”.^[12][13] Morais's dictionary of 1789 enters castigar for animals mating.^[14] His edition of 1813 has “to punish”, “to reprimand”, “to advise” and, figuratively, castigar o estilo “to correct one's style”.^[15] Modern Portuguese adds “to strain” (the voice), “to wear out” (clothes or shoes) and “to excel”, and Brazilian slang “to play (music) with gusto” and “to have sex with”.^[2]

Timeline

• 13th century – first records of castigar, castigo and castigamento.^[2][3]
• 14th century – spelt castegar.^[2]
• c. 1430 – in the Horto do Esposo (a witness of 1390–1437).^[16]
• 15th century – spelt castyguar.^[2]
• 1504 – castige in a private letter.^[17]
• 1569 – Cardoso renders it with Latin punio and animadverto.^[12]
• 1789 – Morais records the sense “to mate” of animals.^[14]
• 1813 – Morais adds castigar o estilo; first record of castigador.^[15][3]

Meanings

Verb

1. To punish; reflexive, to punish oneself: O pai castigou-o por ter mentido.^[2][1][18]
2. To reprimand, admonish.^[2][18]
3. To polish (a text or style) with great care for correctness.^[2][19]
4. To demand too much of; to strain (the voice).^[2]
5. To make suffer, afflict: A seca castigou o sertão.^[18][20]
6. To wear (clothes or shoes) hard.^[2]
7. (intransitive, informal) To excel.^[2]
8. (Brazil, informal) To play or sing (a piece) well.^[2]
9. (Brazil, vulgar) To have sex with.^[2]

Word family

• castigo
• castigador

Related words

• casto
• Spanish castigar

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 l m n o Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. castigar
3. ^ a b c d e Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. castigar
4. ^ a b Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 916
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 1746
6. ^ 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, 138
7. ^ Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. 263
8. ^ 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. castigar
9. ^ a b Universo Cantigas: Glosario da poesía medieval profana galego-portuguesa, A Coruña: Instituto da Lingua e Literatura (ILLA), Universidade da Coruña, https://www.universocantigas.gal, p. s.v. castigar
10. ^ 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. castigar
11. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. castigo
12. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. castigar
13. ^ Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. castigar
14. ^ 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, 244
15. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 1, 359
16. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. castigar
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. castigar
18. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. castigar
19. ^ 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. castigar
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. castigar