encantar

Forms

encantar (first-person singular present encanto, first-person singular preterite encantei, past participle encantado)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin incantō (“to chant a spell over, to bewitch”), already Old Galician-Portuguese encantar in the oldest texts.^[2][3][1] Nascentes counts it as semi-learned.^[4] Speakers can also read it as en- and cantar.^[1]

The same Latin verb is Galician encantar, Spanish encantar, Catalan encantar, Italian incantare, French enchanter and Romanian încânta.^[5][1] The French verb was taken from Latin and adapted after chanter.^[6] Nascentes recalls that enchantments included the recitation of charms.^[7]

The Latin verb is made of in- and cantō (“to sing”).^[8][1] De Vaan derives the simple verb from canō (“to sing”), from Proto-Indo-European *kh₂n-e- (“to sing”).^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The early records concern magic.^[10][11] In a satirical cantiga of Afonso X, a man vai, per foder, encantar a woman, bewitching her so that she seems to him frost or snow.^[10][11] The Crónica Troiana says of the maker of an image that he was a master of necromancy et sabia moy ben encantar “and knew very well how to cast spells”.^[11]

Semantic evolution

Morais in 1789 gives the magic sense first, making something seem what it is not or doing harm by spells, then the figurative “to delight with admiration or pleasure”, encantar as penas “to charm away one's sorrows”, and “to hide”, as in a treasure that was encantado.^[12] The old Caldas Aulete adds “to make invisible”.^[13] In north-eastern Brazil and Minas Gerais encantar-se means “to die”: Guimarães Rosa said in 1967, three days before his death, As pessoas não morrem, ficam encantadas “People do not die, they become enchanted”.^[14] Silva Bastos notes that some lexicographers preferred the spelling incantar.^[15]

Timeline

• 13th century – first records;^[2][3] encantador and encantamento from the same century.^[2][3]
• 14th century – first record of encantação.^[3]
• 16th century – first record of desencantar.^[3]
• 1569 – Cardoso glosses it with Latin incanto.^[16]
• 1789 – Morais gives the magic and the figurative senses.^[12]
• 1813 – first record of the noun encanto.^[3]
• 1899 – Figueiredo refers encantar to the spelling incantar.^[17]
• 1967 – Guimarães Rosa's ficam encantadas “they become enchanted”, said of the dead.^[14]

Meanings

Verb

1. To put under a spell; to bewitch, or to change into another being by magic.^[2][18][1]
2. To enchant, charm, captivate: o espetáculo encantou o público.^[2][18][1]
3. To give great pleasure to; to delight.^[2][18][1]
4. To make invisible; to make disappear.^[2][18][13]
5. (reflexive) To be delighted or charmed.^[2][19]
6. (reflexive or intransitive; north-eastern Brazil, Minas Gerais) To die.^[14]

Word family

• desencantado
• desencantamento
• desencantar
• desencanto
• encantado
• encantador
• encantamento
• encanto

Related words

• cantar
• Latin incantō
• Spanish encantar

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. encantar
3. ^ 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. encantar
4. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. encantar
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 4341
6. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. enchanter
7. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 172
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ a b 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. encantar
11. ^ a b c 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. encantar
12. ^ 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, 485
13. ^ 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. encantar
14. ^ a b c Navarro, Fred (2004), Dicionário do Nordeste, São Paulo: Estação Liberdade, p. s.v. encantar
15. ^ Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. encantar
16. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. encantar
17. ^ Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. 492
18. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. encantar
19. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. encantar