demorar

Forms

demorar (first-person singular present demoro, first-person singular preterite demorei, past participle demorado)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *dēmorō, the active form that replaced Latin dēmoror (“to delay, keep waiting, linger”), written Old Galician-Portuguese demorar in the oldest texts.^[2][3][4][1] Nascentes takes the verb as a learned one.^[5]

The same verb is Italian dimorare, French demeurer, Spanish demorar and Catalan demorar.^[6][7] Medieval Latin already used it for “to dwell”, the sense of the French verb.^[8]

The Latin verb is formed from dē- and moror (“to delay, remain”), derived from mora (“delay”).^[9][10] De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *morHā and Proto-Indo-European *morh₂-, and compares maraid (“lasts, remains”).^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss and Cunha date the verb to the 13th century.^[2][3] The Cantigas de Santa Maria use it for “to be slow”: Santa Maria, a que nunca demora / a buscar-nos carreiras “Holy Mary, who is never slow to find us ways”, and vai tost' e non chores / nen demores “go at once, and do not weep or tarry”.^[11] In the Cancioneiro da Ajuda it means “to stay, remain”, and a cantiga also has the transitive “to put off, delay”.^[11][12]

Semantic evolution

Bluteau defines demorar as “to be situated in a place” and quotes Barros, Vieira and Lucena for a comet or a rock that demorava in a direction; the reflexive meant “to linger”, as food stays in the stomach.^[13] Morais in 1813 has “to detain, put off, wait” and “to be situated”.^[14] Houaiss still labels the nautical use (“to lie at a given bearing from a ship”) as current in Portugal, and Silva Bastos and Figueiredo have “to dwell”.^[2][15][16]

The commonest modern use is intransitive, “to take a long time”, and with an amount of time, “to take”.^[2][4][17] The noun demora is as old as the verb, from the 13th century.^[3]

Timeline

• 1200s – first records; the Cantigas de Santa Maria have demora and demores “tarry”.^[2][11]
• 1200s – the noun demora.^[3]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau gives the sense “to be situated”.^[13]
• 1720 – demorão in a private letter.^[18]
• 1813 – Morais: “to detain, put off” and “to be situated”.^[14]
• 1871–1874 – Vieira derives the verb from Latin demorari.^[19]

Meanings

Verb

1. To hold up, delay; to keep someone waiting.^[2][4]
2. To be slow in coming or happening; to take long: O comboio está a demorar.^[2][4][1]
3. To take (an amount of time): A viagem demorou três horas.^[17][4]
4. (also reflexive) To stay or linger somewhere for a long time.^[2][20][1]
5. To rest (the eyes) on something for a long time.^[2][21]
6. To be situated;^[2][22] (nautical, Portugal) to lie at a given bearing from a ship or a point on land.^[2][22]
7. (dated) To dwell, reside.^[2][20]

Word family

• demora
• demorado
• demoradamente

Related words

• morar
• Latin mora
• Spanish demorar

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. demorar
3. ^ a b c d Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. demorar
4. ^ a b c d e Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. demorar
5. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. demorar
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. demorare
8. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ 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. demorar
12. ^ 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. demorar
13. ^ a b Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. demorar
14. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 1, 528
15. ^ Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. demorar
16. ^ Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. s.v. demorar
17. ^ 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. demorar
18. ^ 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. demorar
19. ^ 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, 767
20. ^ a b Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 2758
21. ^ 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. demorar
22. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. demorar