ferver

Forms

ferver (first-person singular present fervo, first-person singular preterite fervi, past participle fervido)^[1] Feijó's spelling guide of 1734 sets the correct ferver against the popular frever.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin ferveō (“to be intensely hot, to boil”), with the same form Old Galician-Portuguese ferver in the oldest texts.^[3][4][5][1] Latin conjugated the verb in two ways, in the second conjugation and in the third, and de Vaan concludes that the third-conjugation forms, more frequent in the early authors, gradually gave way to the others.^[6][7]

The Latin verb survives in Galician ferver, Asturian ferber, Spanish hervir and Romanian fierbe, and in dialects of southern Italy.^[8][9][10] Corominas notes that most other Romance languages replaced it with the descendants of bulliō, and that Spanish once also had a form in ⟨-er⟩, the one Nebrija preferred.^[10]

De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *ferwe/o- and Proto-Indo-European *bʰeru- (“to be hot, to boil”), with the Celtic cognates Old Irish berbaid and Welsh berw (“to boil”).^[6] Wiktionary adds the English words burn and brew as cognates.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantigas de Santa Maria compare a well to a cauldron: aquel poço fervia ben come caldeira “that well was boiling like a cauldron”.^[11] The cantigas also have the phrase ferve-lh' o sangui “his blood boils”, of a man driven to rage.^[12]

Semantic evolution

The physical sense, of a liquid bubbling over a fire, and the figurative sense of boiling blood are both medieval.^[11][12] Bluteau's dictionary explains the verb as the swelling of a liquid either by fermentation or by fire: wine ferments in the cask, lime fizzes when water is poured on it and a pot boils on the stove.^[13] Morais adds the senses “to be agitated, to seethe” (of the sea in a storm), with quotations from the chronicles.^[14] The transitive use “to cook in boiling water” is in all the modern dictionaries, and Aurélio and Michaelis add “to sterilise by boiling”.^[3][15][16]

In the wine country of Portugal the verb names the fermenting of the must in the vat.^[17][18] In Rio Grande do Sul it also means to get into a fight or a heated row.^[19] The Pernambuco dance and music frevo takes its name from the verb: Houaiss and Cunha explain it as a metathesis of fervo, a back-formation from ferver, alluding to the heat and agitation of the dance.^[20][21]

Timeline

• 13th century – fervia in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[11][3]
• 14th century – first record of the derivative fervura “boiling”, according to Houaiss.^[22]
• 1611 – Barbosa's dictionary glosses ferver with Latin ferveo.^[23]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau describes boiling and fermenting.^[13]
• 1734 – Feijó corrects the popular spelling frever.^[2]
• 1836 – first record of referver, according to Cunha.^[4]
• 1913 – first record of frevo, the name of the dance.^[20]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive) To boil, of a liquid heated until it bubbles and turns to vapour: A sopa já está a ferver.^[3][24][1]
2. (transitive) To bring a liquid to the boil: Ferve a água antes de fazer o chá.^[3][15][1]
3. (transitive) To cook food in boiling liquid; to sterilise something in boiling water.^[3][15][16]
4. (intransitive) To bubble, seethe or churn like a boiling liquid, as the sea in a storm.^[15][18]
5. (intransitive, figurative) To burn with a passion, such as anger or desire, as in ferver o sangue “to have one's blood boil”.^[18][16]
6. (intransitive, figurative) To swarm, to be crowded with people or present in large numbers.^[18][1]
7. (intransitive, Portugal) Of mosto, to ferment in the vat.^[18][17]

Word family

• aferventar
• fervedouro
• fervilhar
• frevo
• referver

Related words

• fervor
• fervente
• férvido
• fervura
• efervescer
• Latin ferveō
• Galician ferver
• Spanish hervir

Usage notes

The phrase ferver em pouca água “to boil in little water” describes a person who loses his temper over trifles.^[18]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. ferver
3. ^ 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. ferver
4. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. ferver
5. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. ferver
6. ^ 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
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. ferveō
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 3465
9. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954)
10. ^ a b Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 350
11. ^ a b c 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. ferver
12. ^ a b Universo Cantigas: Glosario da poesía medieval profana galego-portuguesa, A Coruña: Instituto da Lingua e Literatura (ILLA), Universidade da Coruña, https://www.universocantigas.gal, p. s.v. ferver
13. ^ 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. ferver
14. ^ Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 16
15. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. ferver
16. ^ a b c 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. ferver
17. ^ 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. ferver
18. ^ a b c d e f Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 4264
19. ^ Schlee, Aldyr Garcia (2019), Dicionário da Cultura Pampeana Sul-Rio-Grandense, 2 vols., Pelotas: Fructos do Paiz, p. s.v. ferver
20. ^ a b Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. frevo
21. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. frevo
22. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. fervura
23. ^ Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. ferver
24. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. ferver