comer

Forms

comer (first-person singular present como, first-person singular preterite comi, past participle comido)^[1] Houaiss records a 15th-century spelling comeer.^[2] The Old Galician-Portuguese past participles were comudo and comesto.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *comeō, written Old Galician-Portuguese comer in the oldest texts.^[1][4][5] The Vulgar Latin form is a remaking of comedō (“to eat up”), the source Houaiss, Cunha and the DLP name.^[2][6][7][1] Nascentes and the DCECH explain why: the classical infinitive would regularly have given ⟨*conder⟩, so it must have been replaced by a form built on the short forms ⟨comes⟩, ⟨comest⟩ and ⟨comesse⟩.^[4][8][1] The Latin verb is com- with edō (“to eat”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁édti.^[1][9] Nascentes adds that once the root ⟨ed-⟩ was no longer felt, the meaning passed to the prefix.^[4]

Only Portuguese and Spanish kept the Latin compound: Galician comer, Asturian comer, Mirandese comer beside Mirandese quemer, and Spanish comer; the other Romance languages replaced it with descendants of mandūcō.^[10][8][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The verb is recorded from the 13th century.^[2][6] The Cantigas de Santa Maria use it for people and animals, as in nunca carne comia nen pan nen bocado “he never ate meat nor bread nor a morsel”, and already for the fire that consumed a woman's face (o fogo… que ll'avia comesto todo o rostro).^[3]

Semantic evolution

Senses of consuming and wasting were early: the cantigas have “to consume, torment”, and the Cantigas de Santa Maria also use the infinitive as a noun, comeres “foods”.^[11][3] Morais (1789) records rust eating iron, the sea swallowing ships, war consuming men and the phrase comer-se as mãos de raiva “to bite one's hands with rage”;^[12][13][14] Morais (1813) has the noun comer “food, a meal”, a use the Portuguese dialect surveys still record.^[12][13][14] The old Aulete records comer alguém “to cheat someone” and, as Brazilian slang, the sexual sense;^[15][16][1] comer also means to take a piece at chess or draughts.^[15][16][1]

The verb passed into the creoles: kume in Kabuverdianu, kome in Papiamentu and comê in Macanese, and into Malay as kumi.^[1]

Timeline

• 13th century – first records.^[2][6]
• c. 1400 – comer in the Flos Sanctorum fragment of Santiago de Compostela (witness 1380–1425).^[17]
• 15th century – the spelling comeer.^[2]
• 16th century – first record of carcomer “to eat away wood”, which Cunha thinks is probably related.^[6]
• 1569 – Cardoso renders Comer by Latin edo and vescor.^[18]
• 1789 – Morais records the transferred senses “to corrode, to swallow, to consume”.^[12]
• 1813 – Morais records the noun comer “food”.^[13]

Meanings

Verb

1. To eat: to take food into the mouth, chew and swallow it; to have one's meals: hoje comemos peixe;^[2][19][1] come pouco.^[2][19][1]
2. To swallow up, engulf: o mar comeu a praia.^[2][12]
3. (figurative, with de) To taste, try.^[2][15]
4. To wear away, corrode, destroy slowly: a ferrugem comeu o portão.^[19][1]
5. To use up, squander: comeu a herança em dois anos.^[5][19][1]
6. To take what belongs to another; to cheat, defraud.^[2][20]
7. (chess, draughts) To capture a piece.^[2][16][1]
8. To believe easily: essa ninguém come.^[5][16]
9. To leave out letters or words in writing or speech.^[16][1]
10. (vulgar) To have sex with someone.^[16][1]
11. (reflexive) To be tormented, to fret: comia-se de inveja.^[19][20]

Noun

1. (informal) Food; a meal.^[16][7][1]

Word family

• comida
• comedor
• comezaina
• comezinho

Related words

• carcomer
• comestível
• Latin comedō
• Galician comer

Usage notes

The proverb comer e coçar, o mal está em começar “eating and scratching, the trouble is in starting” is in the old Aulete.^[21] Wiktionary records the phrase vi com estes olhos que a terra há de comer “I saw it with these eyes that the earth will eat”.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v 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. comer
3. ^ 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. comer
4. ^ a b c Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. comer
5. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. comer
6. ^ a b c d Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. comer
7. ^ 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. comer
8. ^ a b Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 158
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 2077
11. ^ 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. comer
12. ^ a b c d 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, 290
13. ^ a b c Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 1, 418
14. ^ a b Instituto da Lingua Galega, Tesouro do léxico patrimonial galego e portugués (TLPGP), Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, https://ilg.usc.gal/tesouro, p. s.v. comer
15. ^ a b c 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. comer
16. ^ a b c d e f g Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 2243
17. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. comer
18. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. comer
19. ^ a b c d e 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. comer
20. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. comer
21. ^ 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