cobrir

Forms

cobrir (first-person singular present cubro, third-person singular present cobre, first-person singular preterite cobri, past participle coberto)^[1] Houaiss records cobryr and cubrir in the 14th century.^[2] Barbosa (1611) and Pereira (1697) refer cobrir to cubrir;^[3][4][5] Feijó (1734) prefers cobrir because of the Latin cooperire, and notes the present cubro, cobres.^[3][4][5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin cooperiō (“to cover completely”), written Old Galician-Portuguese cobrir in the oldest texts.^[2][6][1]

The same Latin verb is Galician cubrir, Spanish cubrir, Catalan cobrir, French couvrir, Italian coprire and Romanian acoperi.^[7][1] In Castilian the form Old Spanish cobrir was usual in the old language, and still in Nebrija.^[8]

The Latin verb is a compound of con- and operiō (“to cover”).^[9][1] Its prefix marks a completed action, and it took the place of the simple verb in the sense “to cover”.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss and Cunha date the verb to the 13th century.^[2][6] In the Crónica Troiana a warrior falls on another and covers him with his shield (cobreo do escudo), a man covers his eyes so as not to see, another puts on a cloak (cobreu hun manto), and the fighters cover the land with dead and wounded (cobriron a terra de mortos).^[11] In the cantigas it is also used of roofing a house and, figuratively, of mounting in the sexual sense.^[12]

Semantic evolution

Most of the modern senses are already in the medieval texts: hiding, protecting, wearing and spreading over.^[11] The derivatives encobrir “to hide”, encoberto and encobridor are recorded from the 13th century, coberta from the 14th.^[6] Figueiredo (1899) adds “fill”, “clothe”, “fecundate” and “disguise”.^[13] Modern dictionaries add money senses, “to exceed” and “to be enough for, pay off (costs, a debt)”, and “to drown out (a sound)”.^[2][14] In Rio Grande do Sul cobrir a marca is to whip a horse hard.^[15]

Timeline

• 13th century – first records;^[2][6] encobrir and encoberto also date from this century.^[2][6]
• 14th century – the spellings cobryr and cubrir; first record of coberta.^[2][6]
• c. 1430 – the earliest record in the CTA prose corpus, the Horto do Esposo (witness 1390–1437).^[16]
• 1569 – Cardoso glosses it with Latin operio and tego.^[17]
• 1611 – Barbosa refers the word to cubrir.^[3]
• 1734 – Feijó argues for the spelling cobrir.^[5]
• 1881 – first record of desencobrir.^[6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To cover; to hide or protect by putting something over, in front of or around: Cobriu a panela com um prato.^[2][18][1]
2. To put on (a hat, a hood); (reflexive) to cover one's head.^[2][19]
3. To roof (a building).^[2]
4. To spread over; to fill (a surface) entirely.^[2][20]
5. To load, to heap (with kisses, praise, flowers).^[2]
6. To shield, to protect.^[2]
7. To clothe, to wrap.^[2]
8. (of male animals) To mount (the female).^[2][14]
9. To exceed; to be enough for, to pay off (costs, a debt); to guarantee.^[2]
10. To disguise, to conceal.^[2]
11. To drown out (a sound).^[2][14]

Word family

• coberta
• coberto
• encobrir
• encoberto
• encobridor
• encobrimento
• desencobrir

Related words

• descobrir
• cobertura
• cobertor
• Latin cooperio
• Galician cubrir

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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 Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. cobrir
3. ^ a b c Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. cobrir
4. ^ 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. cobrir
5. ^ a b c Feijó, João de Morais Madureira (1734), Orthographia, ou Arte de escrever, e pronunciar com acerto a lingua portugueza, Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. cobrir
6. ^ a b c d e f g Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. cobrir
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. cooperire
8. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 263
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. cooperiō
10. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. couvrir
11. ^ 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. cobrir
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. cobrir
13. ^ Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. 308
14. ^ a b c Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. cobrir
15. ^ Schlee, Aldyr Garcia (2019), Dicionário da Cultura Pampeana Sul-Rio-Grandense, 2 vols., Pelotas: Fructos do Paiz, p. s.v. cobrir
16. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. cobrir
17. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. cobrir
18. ^ Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. cobrir
19. ^ 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. cobrir
20. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. cobrir