começar

Forms

começar (first-person singular present começo, first-person singular preterite comecei, past participle começado)^[1] Houaiss records the old spellings cõpeçar (13th century), comechar, comemçar and comezar (14th century), and comessar and comeeçar (15th century).^[2] Feijó (1734) lists compeçar beside começar.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *cominitiō, written Old Galician-Portuguese começar in the oldest texts.^[2][4][1] The Vulgar Latin verb is made of com- and initiō, which in classical Latin meant “to admit with rites, to initiate” and only in late and Christian writers “to begin”.^[5][6][7][8] The Latin verb is formed from initium (“beginning”), itself from ineō (“to go into, enter”), from in and eō (“to go”).^[1] The REW follows Jaberg in placing the starting point of the compound in northern France and in seeing behind it the sense “to consecrate, to baptise” of the Latin verb.^[9]

The same Vulgar Latin verb is Galician comezar, Spanish comenzar, Catalan començar, Occitan començar, French commencer and Italian cominciare.^[9][1][10] Not every source takes the Portuguese verb straight from Vulgar Latin: the REW thinks the Old Spanish and Old Portuguese verb was borrowed from Old Occitan comesar, and that the Catalan one passed into Spanish.^[9] The DCECH, for its part, sees no good reason to take the Spanish verb for a Catalanism.^[7] The Portuguese form has lost the /n/ of the Latin syllable ⟨-min-⟩;^[1] Wiktionary doubts that it went through a stage Old Galician-Portuguese *comẽeçar and puts the loss down to the influence of the synonym Old Galician-Portuguese empeçar.^[1] The 13th-century form Old Galician-Portuguese cõpeçar that Houaiss records answers to Old Spanish compeçar in the Cid, which the DCECH explains as a cross of the Spanish verb with empezar.^[2][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The verb is recorded from the 13th century.^[2][4] The cantigas use it for beginning an action, often with de before an infinitive, as in Afonso X's começou de riir “he began to laugh”, and with con for beginning a love affair with a woman.^[11][12]

Semantic evolution

In the medieval language an infinitive after the verb was introduced by de or a (comecei de fazer, começou a cantar), and the cantigas also used it for beginning to court a lady.^[11][12] Morais (1789) still quotes começou de cortar and começou de tanger from older authors, while the old Aulete notes that a had by then become the usual preposition.^[13][14] The noun começo is recorded in the 13th century and começador in the 14th, recomeçar only in 1858.^[4] Today the verb is transitive (“to start something”), intransitive (“to have its beginning”) and an auxiliary with a or por and an infinitive.^[2][14]

Timeline

• 13th century – first records, also spelt cõpeçar.^[2][4]
• 14th century – first records of começador and of the spellings comechar, comemçar and comezar.^[4][2]
• 1446 – começar in the Vida de Santa Maria Egipcíaca (witness 1431–1446).^[15]
• 1569 – Cardoso renders Começar by Latin incipio and inchoo.^[16]
• 1734 – Feijó lists the variant compeçar.^[3]
• 1789 – Morais gives the verb with a and with de before an infinitive.^[13]
• 1858 – first record of recomeçar.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To begin or start something, to set an action or process going: começaram as obras em março.^[2][17][1]
2. (intransitive) To have its beginning; to start: o jogo começa às nove.^[2][18][1]
3. (with a or por and an infinitive) To begin to do something: começou a chover;^[17][14][1] começou por agradecer.^[17][14][1]
4. (intransitive) To make a first attempt or have a first experience in something; to make one's debut.^[2][14]
5. To begin in a given state or way: a reunião começou tensa.^[2][14]
6. (intransitive) Of a road, area or the like, to have its starting point or boundary somewhere.^[19][14]

Word family

• começo
• começador
• começamento
• recomeçar

Related words

• começante
• iniciar
• início
• Latin initium
• Galician comezar
• Spanish comenzar

Usage notes

The proverb comer e coçar, o mal está em começar “eating and scratching, the trouble is in starting” is recorded by the old Aulete;^[14][20] Michaelis has it as comer e coçar só depende de começar.^[14][20]

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 Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. começar
3. ^ a b 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. começar
4. ^ a b c d e f Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. começar
5. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. initiō
6. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. initio
7. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 157
8. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. começar
9. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 2079
10. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. commencer
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. começar
12. ^ a b 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. começar
13. ^ 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, 289
14. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. começar
15. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. começar
16. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. começar
17. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. começar
18. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. começar
19. ^ 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. começar
20. ^ a b 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. começar