empregar

Forms

empregar (first-person singular present emprego, first-person singular preterite empreguei, past participle empregado)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote enpregar and enplegar, and empregar and epregar appear in the 15th century.^[2][3] The Cantigas de Santa Maria have enpregou and enpregado.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin implicō (“to fold in, entangle”), written Old Galician-Portuguese enpregar and Old Galician-Portuguese enplegar in the oldest texts.^[2][3][1] Wiktionary calls it a semi-learned word, a doublet of the learned implicar.^[1] Houaiss glosses the Latin verb as “to twine, interlace; to hinder; to join; to send”, and Nascentes as “to put someone into an activity”.^[2][5]

The Latin verb is formed from in- and plicō (“to fold”).^[6][1] In Medieval Latin it already meant “to spend, use, apply”, the sense the Romance verbs share.^[7]

The same Latin word is Galician empregar, Spanish emplear, Catalan emplegar, Occitan emplegar, French employer and Italian impiegare.^[8][1] Corominas takes the Spanish verb from Old French, whose phrase “to employ the lance” is common in the medieval epics.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Lorenzo's chronology finds the verb in a Portuguese text of 1254 on tithes and dues, with both empreguado and empregar used of goods bought and brought in, which antedates Machado's first date of 1272.^[4] In the Cantigas de Santa Maria it means “to use, spend”: one man “used his words well” (Ben enpregou el seus ditos), and another's wealth “was well spent for the love of the Virgin”.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The medieval sense was “to use, spend, lay out”, and the troubadours speak of a lover who “employs” his love on an unworthy lady.^[10][4] Cardoso (1569) renders the verb with Latin colloco “to place”, and Pereira (1697) adds pono and loco.^[11][12] Morais (1813) lists spending time or money, aiming a blow or a shot, and conferring an office on someone.^[13] The sense “to give someone paid work” is the one Cunha's definition ends with, and Caldas Aulete defines the word first as “to give a job or occupation to”.^[3][14] Cunha dates emprego to the 15th century and desempregar and desempregado to 1858 and 1899.^[3]

Timeline

• 1254 – empreguado and empregar in a Portuguese text on tithes.^[4]
• 1272 – Machado's first date for the verb.^[4]
• 13th century – Houaiss and Cunha date enpregar; the Cantigas de Santa Maria have enpregou.^[2][3][4]
• 14th century – the spelling enplegar.^[2]
• 15th century – empregar and epregar; the noun emprego.^[2][3]
• 1569 – Cardoso glosses the verb with Latin colloco.^[11]
• 1813 – Morais records spending time and money and conferring an office.^[13]
• 1858 – first record of desempregar.^[3]
• 1899 – first records of desempregado and empregomania.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. To use, to apply: Empregou um método novo na experiência.^[2][15][1]
2. To spend or devote time or effort on something: Empregou anos a estudar a língua.^[2][15]
3. To invest money: Empregou as poupanças numa casa.^[15][14]
4. To employ, to give someone a job;^[2][16][1] (reflexive) to take a job: A fábrica empregou cinquenta operários.^[2][16][1]
5. (reflexive) To be used, to be in use: Esta palavra já não se emprega.^[16]

Word family

• desempregado
• desempregar
• empregado
• empregador
• emprego
• empregabilidade
• empregável

Related words

• empreguismo
• implicar
• Latin implicō
• Spanish emplear

Usage notes

Priberam and Michaelis also record a verb empregar “to pleat”, formed from em-, prega “fold” and -ar, and in Beira and Trás-os-Montes the same form means “to become paralysed”.^{[17][18][1][19]}

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. empregar
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. empregar
4. ^ a b c d e f g 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. empregar
5. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. empregar
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. implicō
7. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. implicare
8. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 171
9. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 581
10. ^ 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. empregar
11. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. empregar
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. empregar
13. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 1, 672
14. ^ a b 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. empregar
15. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. empregar
16. ^ a b c 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. empregar
17. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. empregar
18. ^ 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. empregar
19. ^ 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. empregar