cernir

Forms

cernir (first-person singular present cirno, third-person singular present cerne, first-person singular preterite cerni, past participle cernido)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin cernō (“to sift; to separate, distinguish”), with the infinitive in -ir.^[2][1][3] Spanish has the verb as Spanish cerner, with a variant Spanish cernir that the DCECH explains as a change of conjugation, beside Galician cernir.^[4] The DCECH lists the sense “to sift” in Romanian, Sardinian, Occitan and Catalan as well, from a use already found in Cato.^[4]

De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *krin-e/o-, a nasal present of the root Proto-Indo-European *krey- (“to sift, separate”), as Wiktionary does.^[5][1] Wiktionary compares Ancient Greek κρίνω (krī́nō, “to separate, judge”).^[5][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss dates the verb to 1647, from Bento Pereira's dictionary, which translates it with Latin huc et illuc versari “to turn this way and that”.^[2][6] Morais (1789) and Vieira (1871) take this sense, “to go hither and thither”, from Pereira.^[7][8]

Semantic evolution

Houaiss dates the sense “to sift” in Portuguese only to 1858 and marks it as old.^[2][9] Figueiredo (1899) calls it obsolete.^[2][9] The Portuguese senses of today are motions: pacing to and fro and, above all, swaying the body or the hips, which is the “waddle, wiggle” of Wiktionary.^[2][3][1] For the Spanish verb the DCECH explains a similar sense, birds hovering on their wings, by the slow swinging motion of sifting with a sieve.^[4] Houaiss also records, for Portugal, an obsolete “to spend the night” and a vine-grower's sense, of the vine flower shedding its cap.^[2] The DLP and Priberam add a regional “to pester, bother”.^[10][11]

Timeline

• 1647 – first recorded in Bento Pereira's dictionary, “to turn this way and that”.^[2][6]
• 1789 – Morais defines it as “to go hither and thither”.^[7]
• 1858 – first record of the sense “to sift”.^[2]
• 1899 – Figueiredo lists only “to sift”, as obsolete.^[9]

Meanings

Verb

1. (Portugal, intransitive) To pace to and fro: Cerniu pela sala até de manhã.^[2][6]
2. (transitive, intransitive and pronominal) To sway the body or hips, to wiggle; saracotear.^{[2][3][12][1]}
3. (Portugal, obsolete) To sleep somewhere, to spend the night.^[2]
4. (Portugal, of the vine) To shed the caps of the flowers.^[2]
5. (archaic) To sift, peneirar.^[2][3][9][1]
6. (regional, Portugal) To pester, to bother.^[10][11]

Related words

• discernir
• Latin cernō
• Spanish cerner
• Galician cernir

Usage notes

The verb is conjugated like aderir: eu cirno, ele cerne.^[3][1] Portuguese has the verb only with the infinitive cernir.^[2][1][3] Houaiss, Wiktionary and Aurélio list no cerner.^[2][1][3]

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 n o Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. cernir
3. ^ a b c d e f g Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. cernir
4. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 48
5. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
6. ^ a b c 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. cernir
7. ^ 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, 256
8. ^ 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, 176
9. ^ a b c d Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. s.v. cernir
10. ^ a b 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. cernir
11. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. cernir
12. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 1968