chegar

Forms

chegar (first-person singular present chego, first-person singular preterite cheguei, past participle chegado)^[1] Houaiss records lhegar in the 14th century and cheguar in the 15th.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin plicō (“to fold”), written Old Galician-Portuguese chegar in the oldest texts, though Houaiss calls the origin disputed.^[2][3][4] Latin /pl/ became /ʃ/, spelt ⟨ch⟩, as in chuva and chorar.^[5]

How “fold” became “arrive” is explained in two ways: Houaiss, after Mattoso Câmara, and the Lisbon Academy's dictionary see a sailors' word: ships folded their sails when they reached port.^[2][6] Corominas, Aurélio and Houaiss's alternative take the Vulgar Latin verb as a back-formation from applicō (“to bring near; to put in to shore”), the Latin verb and its back-formation both taking, in late use, senses of place such as “to head for” and “to land”.^[7][8][9][2] Wiktionary likewise derives the word from that verb by loss of its first syllable.^[1] On that view the learned aplicar is its doublet.^[2] Wiktionary also names pregar and plicar as doublets.^[1]

The same verb is Galician chegar and Spanish llegar.^[1][7] Corominas adds Romanian pleca (“to set off”) from the same Latin form, and Catalan aplegar (“to arrive”), in Old Catalan and Valencian, from the compound.^[8] The REW explains the Romanian sense as “to strike the tents”.^[10] Wiktionary traces the Latin verb to compounds of Proto-Indo-European *pleḱ- (“to plait, weave”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss dates the verb to the 13th century.^[2] In the troubadour songs it means “to reach the place one was going to”, with the forms chega, cheguei and chegou, and Johan Lopez de Ulhoa writes of death coming to someone.^[11] In the cantigas d'amigo it means “to come, to arrive”, and its compound tenses are formed with ser.^[11] The glossary of Universo Cantigas adds “to reach the end of a period of time” and the pronominal “to draw near”.^[12]

Semantic evolution

The transitive sense “to bring near” (chega-te à boa árvore “get close to a good tree”) survives beside “to arrive”; the REW glosses the Portuguese verb only as “to bring near”, and Vieira (1871) puts “to set one thing against another” first.^[2][10][5] Cardoso (1569) renders it by Latin advenio and pervenio, Barbosa (1611) by appropinquo “to approach” and pervenio.^[13][14]

From “to reach” came “to amount to”, “to rise to a rank” and “to be enough”, hence the exclamation chega! “enough!”.^[2][1] Informally in Portugal chegar means “to hit”, and in north-eastern Brazil “to make an offer for”.^[2][15] In Portugal the destination takes a, in Brazil em.^[1] The word passed into Guinea-Bissau Creole as tciga and into Macanese as chegâ.^[1]

Timeline

• 13th century – first records; the troubadour songs have chega, cheguei and chegou.^[2][11]
• 14th century – the spelling lhegar.^[2]
• c. 1400 – a fragment of the Flos Sanctorum (copied 1380–1425) uses the verb.^[16]
• 15th century – the spelling cheguar.^[2]
• 1500 – a private letter writes cheguou.^[17]
• 1569 – Cardoso renders it by Latin advenio and pervenio.^[13]
• 1611 – Barbosa adds appropinquo.^[14]
• 1871 – Vieira compares the change of /pl/ to ⟨ch⟩ in chuva and chorar.^[5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To arrive, reach a destination: Chegámos a Lisboa ao meio-dia.^[2][9][1]
2. (of a time or event) To come, begin: Já chegou o outono.^[2][9][1]
3. To reach, extend as far as (a point in space or time).^[2][1]
4. To amount to, reach (a value).^[2][1]
5. (with a and an infinitive) To go so far as to: Chegou a chorar.^[1]
6. To rise to (a rank): chegar a general.^[2]
7. To be enough, suffice;^[2][1] chega de “enough of”: Chega de desculpas!^[2][1]
8. (transitive) To bring near, move closer: Chega o candeeiro à mesa.^[2][1]
9. (pronominal) To approach, come near.^[2][1]
10. (Portugal, informal) To hit, beat.^[2][18]
11. (north-eastern Brazil) To make an offer (for something).^[2][15]
12. (nautical) To come alongside.^[2]

Word family

• achegar
• chega
• chegada
• chegado
• sobrechegar

Related words

• aplicar
• implicar
• pregar
• plicar
• Latin plicō
• Galician chegar
• Spanish llegar

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. chegar
3. ^ Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. s.v. chegar
4. ^ 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. chegar
5. ^ a b c 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, 201
6. ^ 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. chegar
7. ^ a b Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 729
8. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. llegar
9. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. chegar
10. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
11. ^ a b c 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. chegar
12. ^ 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. chegar
13. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. chegar
14. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. chegar
15. ^ a b Navarro, Fred (2004), Dicionário do Nordeste, São Paulo: Estação Liberdade, p. s.v. chegar
16. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. chegar
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. chegar
18. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. chegar