conseguir

Forms

conseguir (first-person singular present consigo, third-person singular present consegue, first-person singular preterite consegui, past participle conseguido)^[1] Old spellings include consiguir and cõseguir in the 14th century, comsseguir and conseguyr in the 15th.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *cōnsequō (“to follow; to achieve”), the active verb (Houaiss and Cunha quote its infinitive) that replaced the classical deponent Latin cōnsequor.^[2][3][4][5] Porto Editora and García de Diego start instead from a Vulgar Latin infinitive of the fourth conjugation, made after the verb for “to go”.^[6][7] Nascentes considers it a semi-learned word.^[8] It is felt as from Portuguese con- + seguir.^[1]

The same Latin verb is Spanish conseguir, Italian conseguire and Catalan consegre.^[9][1] The Latin verb is formed con- and sequor (“to follow”), from Proto-Indo-European *sekʷ- (“to follow”).^[10][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss dates the verb to the 14th century, from the index of medieval Portuguese, while Cunha dates it only to the 16th.^[2][3] The Post Scriptum letters have the spelling cõsigir in 1589.^[11] The sense from the start is “to obtain, to attain”.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

Pereira in 1697 glosses it with Latin acquiro and consequor, and Bluteau with alcançar and adquirir, “to reach, to acquire”.^[12][13] Feijó in 1734 insists on conseguir, not consiguir, conjugated like seguir.^[14] Morais in 1813 also records the pronominal conseguir-se “to follow as a consequence”, and the sense “to have as a result” is still in modern dictionaries.^[15][5] In the modern language, followed by an infinitive, the verb has become the usual way of saying “to manage to, to be able to”.^[16][1]

Timeline

• 14th century – first record according to Houaiss, as consiguir and cõseguir.^[2]
• 16th century – first record according to Cunha.^[3]
• 1589 – cõsigir in a private letter.^[11]
• 1697 – Pereira's Thesouro lists it.^[12]
• 1734 – Feijó prescribes conseguir against consiguir.^[14]
• 1813 – Morais records conseguir-se “to follow as a consequence”.^[15]

Meanings

Verb

1. To obtain, to get; to achieve an aim, usually a hard one.^[2][16][1]
2. (with an infinitive) To manage to, to be able to do something.^[16][1]
3. To have as a consequence or result.^[5][4]

Word family

• conseguimento
• desconseguir

Related words

• conseguinte
• consequência
• consequente
• seguir
• consecução
• Latin cōnsequor
• Spanish conseguir

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. conseguir
3. ^ a b c d Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. conseguir
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. conseguir
5. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. conseguir
6. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 2360
7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. consequi
8. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. conseguir
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 2158
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. consequor
11. ^ 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. conseguir
12. ^ 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. conseguir
13. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. conseguir
14. ^ 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. conseguir
15. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 1, 449
16. ^ 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. conseguir