exemplo

Forms

exemplo m (plural exemplos)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote exempro, eixemplo, eixempro, eixẽplo, eyxemplo, enxemplo and enxempro.^[2][3][4] The 16th-century letters still have ẽxempro, and Feijó (1734) lists the spelling emxemplo beside exemplo.^[5][6] The dialects of Portugal have exempro and exempo.^[7]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin exemplum (“sample, copy; model”).^[3][2][1] The oldest texts have Old Galician-Portuguese exempro, Old Galician-Portuguese eixemplo and Old Galician-Portuguese enxempro, with the popular change of -pl- to -pr-;^[8][9][2] Nascentes calls the modern word a remade, learned form of these.^[8][9][2]

The same Latin word is Galician exemplo, Spanish ejemplo, Italian esempio and French exemple.^[9][10] García de Diego records a dialect form insemplo in Trás-os-Montes.^[10]

The Latin noun comes from eximō (“to take out”), from ex- and emō (“to take; buy”), through an earlier *ex-em-lom in which a /p/ grew between /m/ and /l/: a sample was what is taken out of a lot.^[11][12][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

A Latin charter of 1271 already writes the Romance form: pro multo bono exempro quod … uidimus “for the very good example that we have seen”.^[4] In Galician-Portuguese prose the word means “example, model” and “story with a moral”: the chronicle of 1344 says that someone told them many examples of great courage (faloulhes muytos exemplos de grande esforço), and the Crónica Geral that a man would leave a bad example of himself (leixaria mao exemplo de sy).^[4]

Semantic evolution

The medieval word covered both a model to be imitated and a short story told to teach a lesson, a sense the Crónica Geral glossary renders as “example, fable”.^[4] Barbosa (1611) lists pór exemplo “to set an example” and tomar exemplo d'alguem “to take example from someone”, and Bluteau (1712–1728) defines it as a thing put forward to be imitated or avoided.^[13][14] Morais (1813) has the senses “model”, “something proposed to teach a rule” and “an event from which a lesson is drawn”.^[15]

The sense “a quotation or case given to support a rule or definition” is in Figueiredo (1899) and the modern dictionaries, as is “proverb, saying”.^[16][17][18] The sense “punishment that serves as a warning” is still current.^[3][18] In the Barroso region of northern Portugal exemplo also means “a rare thing”.^[7] Tetum has borrowed the word as ezemplu.^[1]

Timeline

• 1200s – first records, spelt exempro.^[2]
• 1271 – exempro inside a Latin charter.^[4]
• 1344 – exemplos in the chronicle of 1344.^[4]
• 1300s – the spelling exemplo.^[3][2]
• c. 1430 – exemplo in the Horto do Esposo.^[19]
• 1611 – Barbosa lists pór exemplo and tomar exemplo.^[13]
• 1734 – Feijó gives the spelling emxemplo beside exemplo.^[6]
• 1899 – Figueiredo defines it as a particular case given to explain something.^[16]

Meanings

Noun

1. Anything that can or should be imitated; a model: Os pais devem dar o exemplo.^[3][20][21]
2. A person taken as a model, a role model.^[18][21][1]
3. An event or experience from which a lesson can be drawn.^[3][20][18]
4. A punishment meant as a warning to others.^[3][18]
5. A case, phrase or passage given to illustrate or support a rule, a definition or a claim; an example.^[20][17][1]
6. A proverb, saying.^[17][18]

Word family

• por exemplo

Related words

• exemplar
• exemplificar
• exemplário
• Latin exemplum
• Galician exemplo
• Spanish ejemplo

Usage notes

Common phrases are por exemplo “for example”, a exemplo de “following the example of”, dar exemplo “to set an example” and sem exemplo “unparalleled”.^[17][18][1]

Aurélio and Priberam also record exemplo as the name of a crab, Inachus scorpio.^[20][17]

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. exemplo
3. ^ a b c d e f g Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. exemplo
4. ^ a b c d e f 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. exemplo
5. ^ CLUL (ed.) (2014), P.S. Post Scriptum: Arquivo Digital de Escrita Quotidiana em Portugal e Espanha na Época Moderna, Lisboa: Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, http://ps.clul.ul.pt, p. s.v. exemplo
6. ^ a b Feijó, João de Morais Madureira (1734), Orthographia, ou Arte de escrever, e pronunciar com acerto a lingua portugueza, Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. exemplo
7. ^ a b 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. exemplo
8. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. exemplo
9. ^ a b c Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 204
10. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. exemplum
11. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. exemplum
12. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. exemplum
13. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. exemplo
14. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. exemplo
15. ^ Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 1, 796
16. ^ a b Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. 585
17. ^ a b c d e Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. exemplo
18. ^ a b c d e f g 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. exemplo
19. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. exemplo
20. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. exemplo
21. ^ 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. exemplo