cercar

Forms

cercar (first-person singular present cerco, first-person singular preterite cerquei, past participle cercado)^[1] Houaiss records the medieval spellings çercar and cerquar (14th century) and cerqar (15th century).^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin circō (“to go round, travel through”), written Old Galician-Portuguese cercar in the oldest texts.^[2][1][3][4] The Latin verb is formed on circā (“around”), or directly on circus (“circle”): Wiktionary names both, the DHLF derives it from the preposition, itself from the noun, and Vieira (1871) from the noun.^[1][5][6]

The same verb is Galician cercar and Spanish cercar “to fence in, besiege”.^[1][7] In Old Catalan and Aragonese it meant “to look for”, as Italian cercare and French chercher still do.^[7][4] The DHLF traces that sense in French from “to go round in order to examine”, recorded in the 4th century, to “to search” in the 9th to 11th.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantigas de Santa Maria use the verb for a siege and for surrounding: an army of pagans vẽo a vila cercar “came to besiege the town”, a king besieged a castle (un castelo cercara), and the sea cerca o mund' arredor “surrounds the world round about”.^[8] Houaiss dates the verb to the 13th century;^[2][8] Lorenzo's chronology heads it with Machado's date, the 14th century, but quotes these cantigas.^[2][8]

Semantic evolution

Already in the Cantigas de Santa Maria a house is cercada by devils, a man is surrounded by heavenly light and a church is ringed with towers and a wall.^[8] Cardoso (1569) glosses the verb with Latin words for fencing with a rampart or a hedge, and Pereira (1697) adds circumdo “to surround” and claudo “to shut in”.^[9][10] Morais (1813) separates fencing a vineyard or a town, laying a military siege, and embracing round, as the sea surrounds an island, with a figurative use for fame that goes round the world.^[11]

Later senses press the idea of closing in: to corner someone, to press them with insistence, and to shower someone with affection or troubles.^[2][12] In the Brazilian jogo do bicho it means to bet the same number on every prize.^[2][3] The verb passed into Guinea-Bissau Creole as serka.^[1]

Timeline

• 13th century, second half – the Cantigas de Santa Maria use cercar for a siege.^[8]
• 14th century – the spellings çercar and cerquar, and the opposite descercar “to raise a siege”.^[2][13]
• 1344 – first record of the noun cerca “fence, enclosure”.^[14]
• 1480–1510 – the Vida de Santo Agostinho uses the verb.^[15]
• 1561 – çercada in a private letter.^[16]
• 1569 – Cardoso glosses Cercar with Latin vallo and saepio.^[9]
• 1697 – Pereira adds ambio, circumdo and claudo.^[10]
• 1813 – Morais separates fencing, besieging and surrounding.^[11]
• 1871 – Vieira derives the verb from Latin, from the word for a circle.^[6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To fence in; to enclose a piece of ground with a wall or hedge: Cercaram o pomar com uma rede.^[2][12]
2. To surround, encircle; to be or put around: Os vizinhos cercaram o carro.^[2][12][1]
3. To besiege; to block the way of, corner.^[2][12][1]
4. (pronominal) To surround oneself with: cercar-se de amigos.^[2][17]
5. (figurative) To press or pursue someone with insistence.^[2][17]
6. (figurative) To shower with: cercar alguém de cuidados.^[2][18]
7. (printing) To frame a page or picture with a border.^[2]
8. (jogo do bicho) To bet the same number on all the prizes.^[2][3]

Word family

• descercar

Related words

• cerca
• cerco
• círculo
• Galician cercar

Usage notes

Aulete and Priberam also record a masculine noun cercar, the name of a storekeeper or revenue officer in Portuguese India.^[18][17]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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. cercar
3. ^ 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. cercar
4. ^ a b 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. cercar
5. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. chercher
6. ^ a b 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, 174
7. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. circare
8. ^ 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. cercar
9. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. cercar
10. ^ 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. cercar
11. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 1, 374
12. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. cercar
13. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. descercar
14. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. cerca
15. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. cercar
16. ^ 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. cercar
17. ^ a b c Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. cercar
18. ^ a b 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. cercar