convencer

Forms

convencer (first-person singular present convenço, first-person singular preterite convenci, past participle convencido)^[1] The first record of 1369 is spelt conuencer.^[2] Feijó (1734) gives convencer as the correct form, against convincer.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin convincō (“to overcome; to prove guilty”), recorded from 1369 as Old Galician-Portuguese conuencer.^[2][4][1] Nascentes calls it a semi-learned word.^[5] The Latin verb is formed from con- and vincō (“to conquer, win”).^[6][1]

The same Latin word is Spanish convencer, Catalan convèncer, French convaincre, Italian convincere and Romanian convinge.^[1][7] The French verb was taken from Latin about 1174 and reshaped after vaincre.^[8]

De Vaan traces the Latin verb to a stem Proto-Italic *wink- (“to tie, bind”), which came to mean “tie in, overcome”, from a nasal present Proto-Indo-European *u̯i-n-k- (“to bend, tie”).^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss dates the first record, spelt conuencer, to 1369, and Cunha places the verb in the 14th century with the sense “to persuade”.^[2][4] The Horto do Esposo, in a copy of about 1390–1437, has one example.^[10]

Semantic evolution

Barbosa (1611) glosses the verb with Latin convinco and Cicero's phrases on overcoming an opponent with authorities and witnesses, and Pereira (1697) adds confuto “to refute”.^[11][12] Morais (1813) defines it as persuading with arguments that admit no answer, and convencer alguém de furto as proving a theft against someone so that he can say nothing in his defence.^[13] Vieira quotes Francisco Rodrigues Lobo's Corte na Aldeia, where a go-between “persuades, advises and convinces like an orator”.^[14]

The legal sense has faded, and modern Portuguese uses the verb for persuading someone or oneself, and, of a performance or a team, for winning over the audience.^[2][15] Cunha dates the noun convencimento, in the spelling conujnzimento, to the 13th century, and the adjectives convencido and convincente to the 19th.^[4]

Timeline

• 1369 – first record, spelt conuencer.^[2]
• c. 1390–1437 – an example in the Horto do Esposo.^[10]
• 1611 – Barbosa glosses it with Latin convinco.^[11]
• 1734 – Feijó prescribes convencer, not convincer.^[3]
• 1813 – Morais records convencer alguém de furto.^[13][4] Cunha dates convicção to the same year.^[13][4]
• 1836 – first date for convencido.^[4]
• 1844 – first date for convincente.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To convince, persuade (someone, or oneself) to accept an idea or a fact through arguments or evidence: O professor convenceu os alunos a estudar mais.^[2][16][1]
2. To bring someone to accept a reality: convencer alguém de followed by the fact.^[2][15]
3. (intransitive) To be convincing; to win over an audience or critics through the force of a performance.^[2][15]
4. (reflexive) To become sure of something, to be persuaded.^[16][17]
5. (law, dated) To prove someone guilty: convencer de furto.^[13][14]

Word family

• convencido
• convencimento

Related words

• convincente
• convicção
• convicto
• vencer
• Latin convincō

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 Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. convencer
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. convencer
4. ^ 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. convencer
5. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. convencer
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. conuincō
7. ^ Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. convencer
8. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. convaincre
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. vincō
10. ^ a b Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. convencer
11. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. convencer
12. ^ 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. convencer
13. ^ a b c d Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 1, 465
14. ^ a b Vieira, Frei Domingos (1871–1874), Grande Diccionario Portuguez ou Thesouro da lingua portugueza, 5 vols., Porto: Ernesto Chardron e Bartholomeu H. de Moraes, p. 2, 492
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. convencer
16. ^ a b Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. convencer
17. ^ 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. convencer