empresa

Forms

empresa f (plural empresas)^[1] Houaiss records empresa, empressa, enpreza and epresa in the 15th century.^[2] Folqman in 1755 has empresa or empreza, and Wiktionary lists the older spellings empreza and emprêsa.^[3][1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Italian impresa (“undertaking”).^{[2][4][5][6][1]} The Italian noun is the feminine past participle of imprendere (“to undertake”) used as a noun, from Vulgar Latin *imprehendō, formed from in- and prehendō (“to seize”).^[2][7][1] Houaiss dates the Italian word to 1276, Nocentini to before 1374.^[2][7] Houaiss adds that the Italian sense “organisation producing goods” dates from 1644, and Nocentini puts the business sense in the 17th century.^[2][7] Silva Bastos and Figueiredo took the word straight from Latin prehēnsus.^[8][9]

The same Italian word gave Spanish empresa, and Old French emprise and Occitan empreza are parallel formations.^[10][7] According to Nocentini, the Italian sense “heraldic device”, current in the 16th century, came back from Spanish.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Lorenzo's chronology antedates Machado's 16th-century record to 1435 or 1436, in the phrase não lhes pasara esta empresa polas memorias “this undertaking would not have crossed their minds”.^[11] The sense is a bold undertaking, the only one Houaiss and Cunha record for the 15th century.^[2][4]

Semantic evolution

The early dictionaries show the sense of a military venture: Barbosa in 1611 renders fazer empresa as “to take booty”, and Pereira in 1697 gives Latin expeditio and facinus “deed”.^[12][13] Morais in 1789 defines it as what one undertakes, and also as the device on a knight's shield that referred to his undertaking.^[14]

The economic sense appears in the 19th century: Figueiredo in 1899 has “business” and “association organised to run an industry”, the people who run it, and marks the device sense as obsolete.^[9] Its derivatives followed: empresário in 1813, empresarial and empresariado in the 20th century.^[4] In Rio Grande do Sul it has named, since the early 20th century, the farming and cattle-raising partnerships of the interior.^[15]

Timeline

• c. 1435 – first record, esta empresa.^[11]
• 1554 – ẽpresa in a private letter.^[16]
• 1611 – Barbosa's dictionary: fazer empresa “to take booty”.^[12]
• 1755 – Folqman heads empresa or empreza with Latin inceptum “undertaking”.^[3]
• 1789 – Morais adds the sense “device on a shield”.^[14]
• 1813 – first record of empresário.^[4]
• 1899 – Figueiredo records the sense “commercial or industrial association”.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. An undertaking, especially a difficult or bold one; a venture: uma empresa arriscada.^[2][17][18]
2. An intent or design.^[17][19]
3. (economics) An organisation that produces or sells goods or services; a company, firm.^[2][6][20]
4. The company as a legal entity: a empresa pagou a multa.^[2]
5. The people who run a company; its management.^[18][9]
6. (heraldry) A device with a motto, such as knights had engraved on their shields.^[19]

Word family

• empresário
• empresarial
• empresariado
• empresar

Related words

• empreender
• prender
• Italian impresa
• Spanish empresa

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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. empresa
3. ^ a b Folqman, Carlos (1755), Diccionario portuguez, e latino, Lisboa: Régia Officina Silviana (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. empresa
4. ^ a b c d Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. empresa
5. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. empresa
6. ^ a b Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. empresa
7. ^ a b c d e Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier, p. s.v. impresa
8. ^ Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. empresa
9. ^ a b c d Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. s.v. empresa
10. ^ Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. empresa
11. ^ 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. empresa
12. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. empresa
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. empresa
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, 481
15. ^ Schlee, Aldyr Garcia (2019), Dicionário da Cultura Pampeana Sul-Rio-Grandense, 2 vols., Pelotas: Fructos do Paiz, p. s.v. empresa
16. ^ 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. empresa
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. empresa
18. ^ 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. empresa
19. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. empresa
20. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 3465