desejar

Forms

desejar (first-person singular present desejo, first-person singular preterite desejei, past participle desejado)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote desejar, dessejar, deseiar and desegar;^[2][3][4] dezejar is recorded from the 15th century, and Morais still printed it in 1789.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is formed from Portuguese desejo + -ar, the verb of the noun meaning “desire”, and is written Old Galician-Portuguese desejar and Old Galician-Portuguese dessejar in the oldest texts.^[2][5][6][3] The noun goes back to Vulgar Latin *dēsidium, a neuter beside Latin dēsidia (“idleness, sloth”).^[7][8][9] Corominas explains the sense: the Latin noun already meant “debauchery, voluptuousness” in Plautus, after the moral commonplace that idleness breeds lust, and a 10th-century glossary has Medieval Latin dēsideus (“lust”).^[9][1] Houaiss adds that the word took over the sense of dēsīderium (“desire”), which did not survive in all the Romance languages.^[8]

Meyer-Lübke judged Latin dēsīderō (“to long for”) the best fit for the meaning, but could not connect it with the forms; it is the source of French désirer and Italian desiderare.^[10][11] Carolina Michaëlis proposed *dēsidiō, and Wiktionary allows a Vulgar Latin verb of that shape, perhaps crossed with a verb formed on invidia (“envy”).^[3][1]

The verbs of the same noun are Galician desexar, Spanish desear and Catalan desitjar.^[9][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cancioneiro da Ajuda of the 13th century has the verb in the senses “to want, crave, covet”.^[3][2] The Cantigas de Santa Maria have mil vezes eno dia desejava de morrer “a thousand times a day longed to die”, and in the cantigas d'amigo it is also “to long for someone absent”.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The medieval verb took an infinitive with a or de, where today it usually has none.^[3] Morais (1789) defines it as having a desire for something one lacks, “honours, estates, knowledge, power, death”, and in 1813 adds a figurative “to require”, from the Ordenações Afonsinas.^[4][12] Modern dictionaries add “to wish someone something”, sexual desire, and a polite use for asking what someone wants.^[13][6] Deixar a desejar “to leave something to be desired” is a set phrase.^[14][15]

Timeline

• 13th century – the Cancioneiro da Ajuda and the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[3][2]
• 13th century – first records of desejado and desejoso.^[7]
• 14th century – first record of desejável.^[7]
• c. 1430 – the Horto do Esposo (copied 1390–1437).^[16]
• 1569 – Cardoso glosses it with Latin cupio, opto and desidero.^[17]
• 1789 – Morais heads the word desejar.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To wish or want: Desejava estudar medicina.^[2][5][1]
2. To covet, crave the possession of something.^[2][5]
3. To wish someone something: Desejou-nos um bom ano.^[13][6]
4. To desire someone sexually.^[13][6][1]
5. (formal, polite) To want, would like, in offering or asking: Deseja mais alguma coisa?^[6][1]
6. To want someone or something for a purpose or post.^[13][5]

Word family

• desejado
• desejável
• indesejável

Related words

• desejo
• desejoso
• Spanish desear

Usage notes

Deixar a desejar means “to fall short of what is expected”.^[14][15][6]

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 g Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. desejar
3. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. desejar
4. ^ 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, 403
5. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. desejar
6. ^ a b c d e f 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. desejar
7. ^ a b c Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. desejo
8. ^ a b Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. desejo
9. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 460
10. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 154
11. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 2593
12. ^ Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 1, 567
13. ^ a b c d 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. desejar
14. ^ a b Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 2914
15. ^ a b 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. desejar
16. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. desejar
17. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. desejar