esmagar

Forms

esmagar (first-person singular present esmago, first-person singular preterite esmaguei, past participle esmagado)^[1]

Etymology

Its origin is disputed.^[2] Houaiss tentatively takes it as inherited from Vulgar Latin *exmagō (“to lose one's strength”), and adds that the Portuguese verb first meant “to afflict, to tire oneself”.^[2][3] The REW explains that Vulgar Latin verb as ex- with a Germanic word for “strength”, and lists under it Old Italian smagare, Old French esmaier, Old Occitan esmaiar and the Portuguese reflexive “to feel oppressed”.^[4][1] Wiktionary takes the Portuguese word as probably borrowed from the Old Occitan verb, and traces the Germanic element to Proto-Germanic *maginą (“might, power”).^[1] The Academia's dictionary and Aurélio also give the Vulgar Latin verb, from a Germanic verb “to have strength”.^[5][6]

Corominas rejects this.^[7] He finds that the Galician-Portuguese verb never had those senses and was always transitive, “to crush”, and derives it from maga, a fishermen's word for the guts of the sardine: in 1745 Sarmiento explained the verb as removing these guts from the fish.^[7] For the noun he proposes Gothic *maga or Sudovian *magō (“stomach”), a relative of Old English maga (“stomach”), the ancestor of maw.^[7] In his article on Spanish desmayar, however, he still counts the Portuguese and Galician verb as probably belonging with the Old Occitan one.^[8]

Houaiss also compares esmaiar and desmaiar “to faint”, which come from the Old French verb.^[2][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss dates the verb to the 15th century, from the slips of Cunha's medieval index.^[2] Corominas quotes Morais for the sense “to crush”, “to break into pieces by squeezing, treading, pressing”, in authors of about 1530 such as Ferreira de Vasconcelos and João de Barros.^[7]

Semantic evolution

The 16th- and 17th-century dictionaries translate it with Latin verbs of treading and squeezing: Cardoso (1569) calco, Pereira (1697) illido, comprimo, contundo.^[10][11] Bluteau (1712–1728) defines it as treading on or squeezing something until it bursts.^[12] Morais (1789) adds a figurative example: the proud esmagão-nos “crush us” with injustices.^[13] In Vieira (1871–1874) it also means to destroy, to raze, and Figueiredo (1899) lists “to defeat”, “to afflict” and “to demolish someone's arguments”.^[14][15] In Galician the reflexive verb is said of fruit going soft and rotten.^[4][16]

Timeline

• 15th century – first records, according to Houaiss.^[2]
• c. 1530 – “to crush” in Ferreira de Vasconcelos and João de Barros, quoted by Morais.^[7]
• 1569 – Cardoso renders it with Latin calco.^[10]
• 1712 – Bluteau: to tread or squeeze until it bursts.^[12]
• 1789 – Morais records a figurative use.^[13]
• 1899 – Figueiredo has “to defeat” and “to afflict”.^[15]

Meanings

Verb

1. To crush: to squeeze or strike something until it is flattened, bursts or breaks into pieces: esmagar uma noz.^[2][6][1]
2. (figurative) To destroy completely; to quell (a revolt).^[2][17]
3. (figurative) To suppress, to stifle: to stop something from being expressed.^[2]
4. (figurative) To overwhelm with grief or anguish.^[2][5]
5. To beat by a wide margin; to trounce.^[2][5]
6. To oppress, to rule with brutality.^[2][6]
7. To dwarf, to make other things look small by sheer size.^[2]
8. To silence someone in an argument with unanswerable reasons.^[5][18]

Related words

• esmaiar
• desmaiar
• maga

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. esmagar
3. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. esmagar
4. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 3022
5. ^ a b c d 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. esmagar
6. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. esmagar
7. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 227
8. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 468
9. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. esmaiar
10. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. esmagar
11. ^ 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. esmagar
12. ^ a b Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. esmagar
13. ^ 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, 42
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, 306
15. ^ a b Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. s.v. esmagar
16. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 188
17. ^ 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. esmagar
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. esmagar