fender

Forms

fender (first-person singular present fendo, first-person singular preterite fendi, past participle fendido)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin findō (“to split, cleave”), written Old Galician-Portuguese fender in the oldest texts.^[2][3][4][1]

The same Latin verb is Galician fender, Spanish hender, Catalan fendre, French fendre and Italian fendere.^[5][1] Berceo and other early Castilian texts have Old Spanish fender, later replaced by the form with /h/.^[6]

The Latin verb goes back to *findō, a nasal present of the root Proto-Indo-European *bʰeyd- (“to split”).^[1][7] De Vaan reconstructs the present as *bʰi-n-d-, and cognates include भिद् (bhid, “to break”) and bītan, the English bite.^[7][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The verb appears in the Cantigas de Santa Maria, which Lorenzo's chronology cites as its first records: ben como quen lenna fende “just as one who splits firewood”, and de fond' a cima fendeu “it split from the bottom to the top”.^[8] The Crónica Troiana already has the transitive, intransitive and pronominal uses, as in fender moytos escudos “to split many shields”.^[8]

Semantic evolution

Besides splitting wood and shields, the medieval language used the verb for breaking through a mass of people: the Crónica Troiana has a warrior who fendia toda a batalla “cut through the whole army”.^[8] Bluteau (1712–1728) defined it as cutting lengthwise, along the grain of the wood, as opposed to cortar, cutting across it.^[9] Morais (1789) adds the figurative senses of a river dividing a valley and a ship ploughing the seas, with quotations from Camões.^[10] Today's dictionaries keep these senses, together with a figurative “to shake, move deeply”.^[2][11] Macanese has the descendant fendê.^[1]

Timeline

• 13th century – first records, in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[3][8]
• c. 1430 – the Horto do Esposo (witness 1390–1437) uses the verb.^[12]
• 1569 – Cardoso renders fender with Latin findo.^[13]
• 1611 – Barbosa adds the participle fendida cousa “a split thing”.^[14]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau contrasts fender (along the grain) with cortar (across it).^[9]
• 1789 – Morais records the senses “to divide (a valley)” and “to plough (the sea)”.^[10]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive and pronominal) To split or crack, especially lengthwise: Fendeu o tronco com o machado.^[2][15][1]
2. (transitive and pronominal) To divide into parts; to separate.^[2][16]
3. (figurative) To cut through water or air; to furrow or cross: O veleiro fendia o mar.^[2][15]
4. (figurative) To shake; to move deeply.^[2][11]

Word family

• fenda
• fendimento
• fendedor

Related words

• fendente
• Latin findō
• Galician fender

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 Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. fender
3. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. fender
4. ^ 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. fender
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 3312
6. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 341
7. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ 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. fender
9. ^ 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. fender
10. ^ 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, 607
11. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. fender
12. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. fender
13. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. fender
14. ^ Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. fender
15. ^ a b Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. fender
16. ^ 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. fender