entender

Forms

entender (first-person singular present entendo, first-person singular preterite entendi, past participle entendido)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin intendō (“to stretch; to direct”), written Old Galician-Portuguese entender in the oldest texts.^[2][3][1] Nascentes explains the sense: the Latin verb meant “to direct towards something”, and was used especially of directing the mind, a phrase later shortened to the verb alone.^[4] Medieval Latin already used it for “to attend to, to understand” and “to listen”.^[5] The learned intender is a doublet.^[1][6]

The same Latin verb is Galician entender, Spanish entender, Catalan entendre, French entendre, Italian intendere and Romanian întinde; it means “to understand” in Italian and Ibero-Romance, “to hear” in French and Occitan, and “to stretch out” in Romanian.^[7][1] The Latin verb is formed in- and tendō (“to stretch”), from Proto-Indo-European *ten- (“to stretch”).^[8][9][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The verb is recorded from the 13th century.^[2][3] In the Cancioneiro da Ajuda it means “to understand, to perceive” and “to notice”, and entender de is “to know about”, entender en “to see to”, in cantigas of Pero da Ponte.^[10] Pero Guterres writes pero que nunca del'al entendi “though I never understood anything else of him”.^[11]

Semantic evolution

The troubadours also used entender en alguém for “to court someone, to be someone's lover”, a sense Carolina Michaëlis explained as “to have designs on” or “to know intimately”.^[10][12] Cardoso in 1569 and Barbosa in 1611 gloss the verb with Latin intelligo.^[13][14] Folqman in 1755 has entender de alguma cousa “to be expert in something” and “to be of the opinion”.^[15] The infinitive is also a noun, o entender “the understanding, one's opinion”, already in Morais 1813.^[16][17] The pronominal entender-se means “to get on with someone, to come to an agreement”.^[18][1]

In Portugal the dialects use it for “to provoke, to pick a quarrel” (não entendas comigo), a sense Priberam marks as informal.^[19][20]

Timeline

• 13th century – first records, in the cantigas.^[2][3][10]
• 13th century – entendimento and entendente are recorded.^[3]
• c. 1430 – first record in the CTA corpus, in the Horto do Esposo.^[21]
• 1569 – Cardoso glosses it with Latin intelligo.^[13]
• 17th century – subentender is recorded.^[3]
• 18th century – desentender is recorded.^[3]
• 1813 – Morais enters the noun entender.^[16]

Meanings

Verb

1. To understand, to grasp the meaning of something heard or read.^[2][22][1]
2. To know about, to be expert in: entender de.^[22][18]
3. To infer, to deduce; to interpret.^[22][23]
4. To believe, to think, to be of the opinion that.^[22][20]
5. To hear, to make out a sound.^[17][23]
6. (pronominal) To get on well with someone; to reach an agreement.^[1][18]

Noun

1. Opinion, way of seeing: no meu entender “in my view”.^[17][18]

Word family

• entendimento
• entendido
• entendedor
• desentender
• subentender
• entendível

Related words

• intender
• tender
• Latin intendō
• Galician entender

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 Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. entender
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. entender
4. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. entender
5. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. intendere
6. ^ Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. s.v. entender
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 4483
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. intendō
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. tendō
10. ^ 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. entender
11. ^ Lopes, Graça Videira; Ferreira, Manuel Pedro et al. (2011–), Cantigas Medievais Galego-Portuguesas [online database], Lisboa: Instituto de Estudos Medievais, FCSH/NOVA, https://cantigas.fcsh.unl.pt, p. s.v. entender
12. ^ 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. entender
13. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. entender
14. ^ Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. entender
15. ^ Folqman, Carlos (1755), Diccionario portuguez, e latino, Lisboa: Régia Officina Silviana (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. entender
16. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 1, 709
17. ^ 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. entender
18. ^ a b c d Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 3622
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. entender
20. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. entender
21. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. entender
22. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. entender
23. ^ 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. entender