escoar

Forms

escoar (first-person singular present escoo, first-person singular preterite escoei, past participle escoado)^[1] Houaiss records the 15th-century spelling scoar.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *excōlō (“to strain out, filter”), which Houaiss cites as a Latin verb meaning “to filter, strain; clear”.^[2][3][4][1] The REW glosses it “to drip off”, and the DLP and Porto Editora “to filter”.^[5][6][7] It is formed with ex- (“out”) on cōlō (“to strain, filter”), a verb made from cōlum (“strainer, colander”).^[1][8] Silva Bastos and Figueiredo derived it instead from coar within Portuguese.^[9][10]

The same verb is Galician escoar, Spanish escolar, Italian scolare and Catalan escolar.^[5][1] The REW gives the Spanish verb the sense “to slip out of one's hands”.^[5] Wiktionary allows French écouler to be from the same Latin verb or a French formation on couler.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss dates the verb to the 15th century, spelt scoar, from the slips of Cunha's index of medieval Portuguese.^[2] Cunha's dictionary dates it to the 16th century, with escoamento from the same century.^[2][3] Bluteau quotes two 16th-century authors for the sense “let a liquid run off, leaving the rest behind”: Barros's first Década, “Escoaõ a agoa clara, & a maça fica apartada” (they drain off the clear water and the dough is left apart), and the Diálogos of Heitor Pinto, “O vinho se Escoa, & a agoa fica” (the wine runs off and the water stays).^[11]

Semantic evolution

Bluteau defines the verb as separating a liquid from what it is mixed with by letting it run off, and the reflexive as moving away little by little.^[11] Morais (1789) adds figurative uses: time se escoa, slipping by unnoticed, the soul se escoa in weeping, and a dog or a captive slips its collar or noose.^[12][13] Vieira (1871) calls escoar as castanhas “drain the boiled chestnuts” a popular expression.^[14]

The old Caldas Aulete already has the sense “take the produce away to the market”, and records from the island of Marajó in Brazil the sense “separate other people's cattle from the herd”.^[15][16] Modern dictionaries extend the verb to the flow of goods and of traffic.^[2][15][7]

Timeline

• 1400s – first record, spelt scoar.^[2]
• 1500s – escoar and escoamento in Cunha's dictionary.^[3]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau quotes Barros and Heitor Pinto.^[11]
• 1789 – Morais records escoar-se of time passing.^[12]
• 1858 – first record of escoadoiro.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To make or let (a liquid) run off slowly; to drain: escoar a água da banheira.^[2][16][6]
2. (intransitive and pronominal) Of a liquid, to run out, trickle away (escorrer), emptying the container.^[16][6]
3. (transitive) To give an outlet to (goods); to move (produce) to market and sell it.^[2][6][1]
4. (intransitive and pronominal) Of goods or traffic, to flow or be carried off.^[2][7]
5. (intransitive) To lose strength; to dissipate, fade away.^[2][16]
6. (intransitive and pronominal) To slip away unnoticed; to disappear.^[2][16]
7. (pronominal) Of time, to pass by.^[17][7]
8. (Brazil, Pará) To separate (other owners' cattle) from the herd.^[16][6]

Word family

• escoadouro
• escoamento

Related words

• coar
• escoação
• escoado
• Latin cōlum
• Galician escoar

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. escoar
3. ^ a b c d Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. escoar
4. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. escoar
5. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. excōlāre
6. ^ a b c d e 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. escoar
7. ^ a b c d Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 3790
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. cōlō
9. ^ Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. escoar
10. ^ Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. s.v. escoar
11. ^ a b c Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. escoar
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, 33
13. ^ Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 1, 739
14. ^ Vieira, Frei Domingos (1871–1874), Grande Diccionario Portuguez ou Thesouro da lingua portugueza, 5 vols., Porto: Ernesto Chardron e Bartholomeu H. de Moraes, p. 3, 262
15. ^ 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. escoar
16. ^ a b c d e f Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. escoar
17. ^ 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. escoar