destruir

Forms

destruir (first-person singular present destruo, first-person singular preterite destruí, past participle destruído)^[1] Medieval texts write destroir beside destruir, and destroyr in the 14th century.^[2][3][4] Feijó (1734) still had to insist on destruir rather than destroir.^[5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin dēstruō (“to pull down, demolish”), written Old Galician-Portuguese destroir and Old Galician-Portuguese destruir in the oldest texts.^[3][2][4][1] Nascentes considers it semi-learned, and Wiktionary suggests it was probably an early borrowing from Latin.^[6][1]

The Latin verb is formed from dē- and struō (“to pile up, build”), and was used as the opposite of cōnstruō (“to build”).^[7][8][1]

The same Latin verb is Galician destruír, Spanish destruir, Old Occitan destruire, French détruire and Italian struggere, which in Italian also came to mean “to melt”.^[9][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantigas de Santa Maria of the 13th century use both spellings: todo seu cuidad'era de destroir los mesquỹos “all his care was to destroy the wretched”, and of the Virgin per ela foi a morte destroyda “through her death was destroyed”.^[4][2] The satirical cantigas use it of laying waste a country: e destruir atá burgo d'Estela “and destroy as far as the town of Estella”.^[10][11]

Semantic evolution

The medieval word already covered both the ruin of things and the undoing of persons.^[4] Barbosa (1611) explains it as pôr por terra “to bring to the ground”, with Latin destruo, everto and diruo.^[12] Bluteau gives first the sense “to pull down” a building, then the destruction of a fortune, a reputation or a life.^[13] Vieira's dictionary defines it as razing a building so that nothing of it remains and, by extension, ruining, extinguishing and killing.^[14]

Brazilian Portuguese gave the verb two newer senses: in football, to break up the opponent's attacks, and in slang, to do something brilliantly.^[3][15][16]

Timeline

• 13th century – destroir and destruir in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[4][2]
• 14th century – the spelling destroyr; the noun destroydor “destroyer”.^[3][2]
• c. 1430 – destruir in the Horto do Esposo (manuscript 1390–1437).^[17]
• 16th century – first record of destruição.^[2]
• 1611 – Barbosa glosses it pôr por terra.^[12]
• 1734 – Feijó prescribes destruir, not destroir.^[5]
• 1871–1874 – Vieira defines it as razing a building.^[14]

Meanings

Verb

1. To demolish, pull down (what was built).^[3][18][1]
2. (transitive and pronominal) To kill, exterminate; to destroy oneself.^[3][15]
3. To rout, shatter (especially a military force).^[3]
4. To ruin, devastate, lay waste: a cheia destruiu as colheitas.^[3][18]
5. (figurative) To put an end to, wipe out (an illusion, a plan, a feeling).^[3][18]
6. To have a ruinous effect on; to reduce to nothing (a reputation, an image).^[3][15]
7. (Brazil, football) To break up the opponent's moves.^[3]
8. (Brazil, slang) To do brilliantly, to be a great success.^[15][16]

Word family

• destruidor
• destruível

Related words

• destruição
• destrutivo
• destrutor
• indestrutível
• construir

Usage notes

In the present tense the verb is conjugated like fugir: destruo, destróis, destrói, as Feijó already noted.^[5][1]

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 Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. destruir
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. destruir
4. ^ a b c d e 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. destroir
5. ^ a b c 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. destruir
6. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. destruir
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. destruō
8. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. destruo
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 2606
10. ^ 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. destruir
11. ^ 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. destroir
12. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. destruir
13. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. destruir
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, 955
15. ^ 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. destruir
16. ^ 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. destruir
17. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. destruir
18. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. destruir