espantar

Forms

espantar (first-person singular present espanto, first-person singular preterite espantei, past participle espantado)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *expaventō (“to frighten”), a verb formed on expavēns, the present participle of expaveō (“to be terrified at”).^[2][1][3] The Portuguese, Spanish and Catalan form goes back to a contracted *expaentō, which Nascentes and Houaiss give as the immediate source.^[4][5] The DCECH explains the contraction as a dissimilation that already happened in Latin, attested in Old Italian spaentare and comparable to the loss of -v- in pavor > Catalan paor and Italian paura.^[6] The REW lists the contracted form beside the full one.^[7]

The contracted form is also Galician espantar, Spanish espantar, Catalan espantar and Occitan espantar, while the full form gave Italian spaventare and French épouvanter.^[7][1][8]

The Latin verb is formed from ex- and paveō (“to be frightened”).^[9][1] De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *pawē- and Proto-Indo-European *pou-eh₁- (“to fear”), with cognates in the Celtic words for “fear”, such as Old Irish omun.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first records are in the Cantigas de Santa Maria: the heading of cantiga 47 tells how the Virgin protected a monk que o demo quis espantar “whom the devil wanted to frighten”, and in the poem itself o monge feramen s'espantou “the monk was terribly frightened”.^[11][5][2] The Crónica Troiana has the reflexive non uos espantedes de nos “do not be afraid of us”.^[11]

Semantic evolution

The medieval verb means “to frighten” and, reflexively, “to take fright”.^[11] Folqman in 1755 distinguishes frightening with fear from astonishing with admiration.^[12] Morais in 1789 adds making someone flee from fear, espantar a ventura “to chase good fortune away”, and the reflexive “to marvel”.^[13] The three modern senses, to frighten, to astonish and to drive away, are those of Houaiss.^[5]

In Rio Grande do Sul it is used of driving animals off and, reflexively, of a horse that shies.^[14] Dialect surveys recorded it in Portugal of a crop that withers and in Brazil of driving fish into a net by beating the water.^[15]

The family grew early: espanto “fright, wonder” and espantoso are recorded in the 13th century, espantável in the 14th, espantamento and espantadiço in the 15th, and espantalho “scarecrow” in the 16th.^[2]

Timeline

• 13th century – espantar in the Cantigas de Santa Maria, and the derivatives espanto and espantoso.^[11][2]
• 14th century – spantavyl, the earliest form of espantável.^[2]
• 1431–1446 – espantar in the Vida do honrado Infante Josafat.^[16]
• 16th century – first record of espantalho.^[2]
• 1569 – Cardoso translates it with Latin terreo.^[17]
• 1755 – Folqman separates frightening and astonishing.^[12]
• 1789 – Morais adds “to make flee” and the reflexive “to marvel”.^[13]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive and reflexive) To frighten, to scare, or to take fright: O trovão espantou as crianças.^[5][18][1]
2. (transitive, intransitive and reflexive) To astonish, to amaze, or to be astonished: Espantou-se com a rapidez da resposta.^[5][18][1]
3. To drive away, to shoo, espantar as moscas, and figuratively to dispel a feeling or state, espantar a tristeza.^[5][19][1]
4. To open the eyes wide.^[19][20]
5. (reflexive, of an animal) To shy, to swerve suddenly.^[20][14]

Word family

• espanto
• espantoso
• espantado
• espantadiço
• espantalho
• espantamento
• espantável

Related words

• pavor
• Latin paveō
• Spanish espantar

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. espantar
3. ^ 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. espantar
4. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. espantar
5. ^ a b c d e f Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. espantar
6. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 734
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 3035
8. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 190
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. expaveō
10. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ a b c d 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. espantar
12. ^ a b Folqman, Carlos (1755), Diccionario portuguez, e latino, Lisboa: Régia Officina Silviana (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. espantar
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, 46
14. ^ a b Schlee, Aldyr Garcia (2019), Dicionário da Cultura Pampeana Sul-Rio-Grandense, 2 vols., Pelotas: Fructos do Paiz, p. s.v. espantar
15. ^ 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. espantar
16. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. espantar
17. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. espantar
18. ^ a b Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. espantar
19. ^ 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. espantar
20. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. espantar