contar

Forms

contar (first-person singular present conto, first-person singular preterite contei, past participle contado)^[1] Houaiss records comtar in 1292, contar in the 13th century and cõtar in the 14th.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin computō (“to reckon, count up”), written Old Galician-Portuguese comtar and Old Galician-Portuguese contar in the oldest texts.^[2][3][1] The Latin verb is a compound of con- and putō (“to reckon, think”).^[4][2] The learned computar is its doublet.^[2][1]

The same Latin verb is Galician contar, Spanish contar, Catalan comptar, Italian contare, and both French compter “to count” and conter “to tell”.^[5][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss's first record, of 1292, has the sense “to compute”.^[2] The Cantigas de Santa Maria use the verb both for telling, Outra razon quero contar “I want to tell another story”, and for counting, contaron-se quantos eran “they counted how many they were”; the Cancioneiro da Ajuda has it for narrating.^[6]

Semantic evolution

The sense “to tell” grew out of “to count”: Nascentes explains that whoever counts gives an account of the result, and Wiktionary puts the link in the idea of going through facts one by one, as in English tell.^[7][1] Medieval Latin already used the verb for “to narrate” in 906.^[8] Houaiss records the sense in the 13th century but holds that it became current only from the 15th.^[2] French later separated the two senses as compter and conter.^[2][8] A satirical cantiga also uses contar for “to settle an account, pay”.^[6]

Barbosa (1611) has contar historias, and Morais (1813) records contar com alguém in the sense “to include someone in the number”.^[9][10] Figueiredo (1899) reports Castilho's view that the sense “to narrate” came from conto, from Latin commentum.^[11] Modern senses include “to be (so many years old)”, “to have at one's disposal” and “to rely on”.^[12][1]

Timeline

• 1292 – comtar “to compute”.^[2]
• 13th century – contar “to narrate” and “to calculate” in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[2][6]
• 1301–1400 – the Trasladação de S. Nicolau is the oldest CTA text with the verb.^[13]
• 14th century – the spelling cõtar.^[2]
• 1611 – Barbosa lists contar historias.^[9]
• 1813 – Morais records contar com alguém.^[10]
• 1899 – Figueiredo reports Castilho's explanation of the sense “to narrate”.^[11]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To count: to find the number or quantity of: Contou as moedas duas vezes.^[2][12][1]
2. (intransitive) To count; to do sums.^[2][14]
3. (transitive) To include in a count; to take into account.^[2][12]
4. (transitive) To tell, narrate or relate: Conta-me como foi a viagem.^[2][12][1]
5. (transitive) To be a certain age; to have lasted a certain time: A avó conta noventa anos.^[1][15]
6. (transitive, or with com) To have at one's disposal: A escola conta com bons professores.^[2][1]
7. (intransitive, with com) To rely on; to expect the presence or help of.^[14][16][1]
8. (intransitive) To matter, to be of importance.^[1][17]
9. (mathematics) To set a set in one-to-one correspondence with an initial segment of the natural numbers.^[2]

Word family

• conta
• contador
• contadoria
• contagem
• contável

Related words

• computar
• conto
• Latin computō
• Galician contar

Usage notes

Fixed phrases include contar as horas “to wait impatiently” and contar carneiros “to count sheep” in order to fall asleep.^[17][14]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p 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. contar
3. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. contar
4. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. computō
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 2108
6. ^ 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. contar
7. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. contar
8. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. conter
9. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. contar
10. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 1, 456
11. ^ a b Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. s.v. contar
12. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. contar
13. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. contar
14. ^ 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. contar
15. ^ 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. contar
16. ^ 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. contar
17. ^ a b Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 2389