embaraçar

Forms

embaraçar (first-person singular present embaraço, first-person singular preterite embaracei, past participle embaraçado)^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Portuguese em- + baraço + -ar, from the noun for “cord”, so that its first sense was to entangle or hobble.^[2][3][4][5] Nascentes and the DLP allow the feminine baraça as the base as well, Silva Bastos and Figueiredo derive the verb from embaraço, and Wiktionary treats it as inherited from Old Galician-Portuguese embaraçar.^{[6][4][7][8][1]} The base noun is usually derived from Arabic مَرَسَة (marasa, “rope”), while Corominas thinks it pre-Roman, perhaps Celtic.^[2][9][5]

Corominas shows that the verb spread from Portuguese or Leonese: Spanish embarazar appears only about 1460, Catalan embarassar a little earlier in Pere Marc, and French embarrasser and Italian imbarazzo only in the 16th century, so that he rejects a derivation from a word for “bar”.^[5] Corriente also derives the Spanish, Galician and Catalan verbs from the Portuguese noun.^[9] Wiktionary compares English embarrass.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss dates the verb to the 15th century.^[2] Lorenzo's chronology quotes the Crónica de Sete Reis: e diserrom a el Rey como se ja embaraçauom os seus com D. Diogo “and they told the King how his men were already getting entangled with Dom Diogo”.^[10] Corominas notes that Gil Vicente already uses it several times.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The 16th- and 17th-century dictionaries render it with Latin verbs of hindering and entangling (impedio, implico, intrico).^[11][12][13] Morais in 1789 also has the sense of confusing a person with shame or fear.^[14] The sense “to make someone feel awkward”, the main sense of the English and French cognates, is now common in Portuguese too.^[2][3]

Regional and popular speech in Portugal uses the verb for making a woman pregnant.^[4][7][15] The DLP and Porto Editora record the literal sense of winding the cord round a spinning top.^[4][16]

Timeline

• 15th century – Houaiss's first record.^[2]
• c. 1460 – Spanish embarazar is first recorded.^[5]
• 16th century – embaraçauom in the Crónica de Sete Reis.^[10]
• 1548 – embaraçou in a private letter.^[17]
• 1569 – Cardoso renders it with Latin impedio.^[11]
• 1580 – French embarrasser first appears, in Montaigne.^[5]
• 1789 – Morais records the sense of confusing someone with shame or fear.^[14]
• 1912 – Silva Bastos records the popular sense “to make pregnant”.^[7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To hinder, hamper; to complicate.^[2][3]
2. To block, obstruct (a road, the traffic).^[2][3]
3. To embarrass, disconcert;^[16] (pronominal) to become flustered.^[2][3]
4. To tangle (thread, wool, hair).^[2][3]
5. To wind the cord round (a spinning top).^[4][16]
6. (regional, popular) To make (a woman) pregnant.^[4][18][15]
7. (nautical) To jam (a block) so that the rope cannot run.^[4]

Word family

• embaraço
• embaraçado
• embaraçoso
• embaraçador
• embaraçante
• desembaraçar

Related words

• baraça
• Spanish embarazar
• French embarrasser
• English embarrass

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. embaraçar
3. ^ a b c d e f Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. embaraçar
4. ^ a b c d e f g 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. embaraçar
5. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 555
6. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. embaraçar
7. ^ a b c Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. embaraçar
8. ^ Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. s.v. embaraçar
9. ^ a b Corriente, Federico; Pereira, Christophe; Vicente, Ángeles (2019), Dictionnaire des emprunts ibéro-romans: emprunts à l'arabe et aux langues du monde islamique (Encyclopédie linguistique d'Al-Andalus 3), Berlin: De Gruyter, p. s.v. baraça/o
10. ^ a b 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. embaraçar
11. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. embaraçar
12. ^ Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. embaraçar
13. ^ 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. embaraçar
14. ^ a b 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, 468
15. ^ a b Instituto da Lingua Galega, Tesouro do léxico patrimonial galego e portugués (TLPGP), Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, https://ilg.usc.gal/tesouro, p. s.v. embaraçar
16. ^ a b c Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 3402
17. ^ 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. embaraçar
18. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. embaraçar