cheirar

Forms

cheirar (first-person singular present cheiro, first-person singular preterite cheirei, past participle cheirado)^[1] Old forms include cherar and lheyrar in the 14th century and cheeyrar in the 15th; a letter of 1556 writes cheyrar.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin flagrō (“to smell”), written Old Galician-Portuguese cheirar in the oldest texts.^[2][1][4] This Vulgar and Late Latin verb is the classical Latin frāgrō (“to smell strongly”) with the first /r/ dissimilated to /l/;^[1][5] Houaiss warns that it must not be confused with the classical verb meaning “to burn”.^[2][1][5] Cunha and Aurélio give a form without the second /r/, Vulgar Latin *flagō.^[6][7]

Latin /fl/ at the start of a word became /ʃ/, written ⟨ch⟩, and the /g/ before /r/ turned into /i/, as in inteiro from Latin integer.^[5][8]

The same Latin verb is Galician cheirar, Catalan flairar, Occitan flairar and French flairer, and through Old French the English noun flair.^[1][9][10]

De Vaan derives the classical verb from an adjective meaning “smelling”, Proto-Indo-European *bʰreh₁g- (“to smell”) with a suffix *-ro-.^[11][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss dates the verb to the 13th century, from Cunha's index of medieval Portuguese.^[2] The Cantigas de Santa Maria use it of things that give off a smell: spices, balsam and ointment non cheiravan atan ben “did not smell so good”, and a corpse peyor cheirava que a caavrỹa “smelled worse than carrion”.^[12]

Semantic evolution

In the cantigas the verb mostly means to give off a smell, good or bad.^[12][13] Cardoso's dictionary of 1569 renders it both by Latin oleo “to emit a smell” and fragro.^[14] Morais (1813) has both the transitive sense, to put one's nose to something (cheirai esta rosa), and the intransitive one, and the figurative isso cheira a velhacaria “that smells of knavery”.^[15] The old Aulete adds “to inquire, pry” and “to suspect”.^[16]

Later senses include taking snuff or another substance through the nose, and in informal use snorting cocaine; to pry into other people's lives; and, informally, to please, as in isto não me cheira.^[2][1] The verb passed into the creoles as tcera in Guinea-Bissau, tchera in Kabuverdianu and cherâ in Macanese.^[1]

Timeline

• 13th century – the Cantigas de Santa Maria use cheirar.^[12][2]
• 14th century – the forms cherar and lheyrar.^[2]
• c. 1430 – the Horto do Esposo (witness 1390–1437) uses the verb.^[17]
• 1556 – a private letter writes cheyrar.^[3]
• 1569 – Cardoso enters Cheirar with Latin oleo and fragro.^[14]
• 1813 – Morais records the transitive and intransitive senses and cheirar a.^[15]
• 1871–1874 – Vieira explains the sound changes from Latin flagrare.^[8]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To smell, perceive a smell with the nose; to sniff at: cheirou o pão quente.^[2][7][1]
2. (transitive) To breathe in a substance through the nose, such as snuff;^[7][1] (informal) to snort cocaine.^[2][7][1]
3. (figurative) To sense or guess; to sniff out (farejar): cheirou o perigo.^[2][18]
4. (informal) To pry, meddle; to snoop.^[2][1]
5. (intransitive) To give off a smell; with a, to smell of: a sala cheira a tinta.^[2][1][4]
6. (intransitive) To give off a bad smell; to stink.^[2]
7. (figurative) To seem, to have the look of: isto cheira a fraude.^[2][18]
8. (informal) To please, make a good impression on: a ideia não me cheira.^[2][18]

Word family

• cheiro
• cheiroso
• cheirador
• xereta

Related words

• fragrância
• fragrante
• Latin frāgrō
• Galician cheirar
• French flairer

Usage notes

The idiom não cheirar nem feder “neither smell nor stink” describes someone dull and insignificant.^[2] In Portugal cheirar a esturro or cheirar a chamusco “to smell of burning” is said of something that does not inspire trust.^[19]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q 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 Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. cheirar
3. ^ a b 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. cheirar
4. ^ 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. cheirar
5. ^ a b c 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. cheirar
6. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. cheirar
7. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. cheirar
8. ^ 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, 203
9. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. fragrare
10. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. flairer
11. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
12. ^ 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. cheirar
13. ^ 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. cheirar
14. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. cheirar
15. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 1, 387
16. ^ 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. cheirar
17. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. cheirar
18. ^ a b c Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. cheirar
19. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 2022