ficar

Forms

ficar (first-person singular present fico, first-person singular preterite fiquei, past participle ficado)^[1] The medieval texts write ficar, fficar and fiquar, with forms such as ficã, ficaua and fiquey; a few Galician documents have the variant fincar in the same sense (fincou, fincarõ).^[2] Feijó (1734) insists on the spelling ficar, not fiquar.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *fīgicō (“to fix, drive in”), a frequentative verb formed on fīgō (“to drive in, fix”), written Old Galician-Portuguese ficar in the oldest texts.^[4][5][6][1] The old language also had the variant Old Galician-Portuguese fincar, which survives separately as fincar “to drive in”;^[1][5][2] Wiktionary calls the two doublets.^[1][5][2]

The same Latin verb is Galician ficar, Spanish hincar (Old Spanish ficar and fincar), Occitan ficar, French ficher and Italian ficcare; the REW notes that only Portuguese and Provençal have the sense “to remain”.^[7][8][1]

Houaiss, Cunha, Aurélio and the DLE write it with one consonant between the vowels; the DLP and Nascentes double it, so the sources differ on its exact form.^{[4][5][9][10][11]} Nascentes reports the objection of Otoniel Mota that a verb in -icare should have voiced its consonant in Portuguese, as in cavalgar, julgar and navegar, and Mota's proposal *ficcō, a form that also explains the double consonant of the French verb.^[11] Corominas answers the same difficulty with a very early syncope: the Latin verb had already lost its middle vowel in imperial times, because the /ɡ/ and the /k/ were so alike, and Wiktionary likewise speaks of an early loss of the /i/ and assimilation of /ɡk/ to /kk/.^[8][1] The REW finds Menéndez Pidal's *ficticō phonetically harder, and the DHLF mentions Guiraud's similar form built on the participle fictus.^[7][12]

The Latin verb goes back to Proto-Indo-European *dʰeygʷ- (“to stick, set up”).^[1] De Vaan reconstructs a thematic present of this root, and compares Lithuanian díegti (“to plant, sting”).^[13]

Earliest recorded meaning

The oldest record is a Portuguese document of partition dated 1192–1193, which says three times that a co-heir is to ficar por sa particon, to remain, by his share of the division, in part of an estate (Rodrigo Sanchiz ficar por sa particon na quinta do couto).^[2] Galician documents have it from 1242–1252 (por atal razũ ficã LXXVJ talegas, “for that reason 76 bags remain”).^[2] So the first records already have the sense “to remain, be left”, not the Latin “to drive in”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The Latin sense “to drive in, fix” lived on in the medieval language: the cantigas speak of an arrow ficada in a leg and of tents pitched round a town, and ficar os gẽollos “to put one's knees (on the ground)” meant “to kneel”.^[2][14] A document of 1379 from Coimbra still has ficassem os geolhos em terra “let them kneel down”.^[15] But already in the 13th century the usual senses were “to stay, remain”, “to be left over” (ficou-lle del un fillo “a son of his was left to her”) and “to become, turn out” (ficas ora prennada “now you become pregnant”); the negative se per nos non ficar meant “if it is not for want of effort on our part”.^[2] Today “to drive in” belongs to fincar.^[1]

Morais (1813) adds “to stand surety” (eu lhe fico “I answer for it”), and Figueiredo (1899) “to die” and, in card games, “to take no more cards”.^[16][17] In Brazilian slang ficar com came to mean spending a few hours with someone, kissing and flirting, with no commitment.^[4][1]

The verb passed into Macanese as ficâ and into Guianese Creole as fika.^[1]

Timeline

• 1192 – ficar por sa particon in a Portuguese record of the partition of an estate.^[2]
• 1242–1252 – first record in a Galician document, ficã.^[2]
• 13th century – the Cantigas de Santa Maria use it for “to remain”, “to be left”, “to become” and “to drive in”.^[2]
• 1379 – ficassem os geolhos em terra “let them kneel” in a document from Coimbra.^[15]
• 1430 – the Horto do Esposo (witness 1390–1437), the first prose text of the CTA corpus with the verb.^[18]
• 1569 – Cardoso glosses it with Latin maneo “I remain”.^[19]
• 1712 – Bluteau gives it as “to remain, be left over”.^[20]
• 1813 – Morais records the sense “to stand surety for”.^[16]
• 1899 – Figueiredo records the card-game sense “to take no more cards”.^[17]

Meanings

Verb

1. To stay, remain in a place, not leave: Hoje fico em casa.^[4][6][1]
2. To stay the night, lodge: Ficámos numa pensão perto da praia.^[4][6]
3. To be located, lie: A farmácia fica ao lado da escola.^[4][6][1]
4. To go on being in a state or position: ficar calado, ficar de pé.^[4][21]
5. To become, get, end up: Ficou furioso com a notícia.^[4][21][1]
6. To be left over, remain behind: Da casa antiga só ficaram as paredes.^[4][22][1]
7. To be postponed (ficar para): A reunião fica para segunda.^[4][6]
8. To cost, come to: O conserto ficou em cem euros.^[4][21]
9. (ficar com) To keep, take, come to own: Fico com este casaco.^[4][21]
10. To suit, look well on: Esse azul fica-te bem.^[4][22]
11. (ficar de) To agree or promise to do something: Ficaram de ligar amanhã.^[4]
12. To stand surety, answer for.^[4][22]
13. (card games) To take no more cards.^[4][22]
14. (Brazil, informal) (ficar com) To spend some time kissing and flirting with someone, without commitment.^[4][1]

Word family

• ficada
• ficante

Related words

• fincar
• fixar
• fixo
• Latin fīgō
• Galician ficar
• Spanish hincar

Usage notes

Among the many set phrases are ficar a ver navios “to be disappointed” and ficar em águas de bacalhau “to come to nothing”.^[22]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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. ficar
3. ^ 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. ficar
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. ficar
5. ^ a b c d Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. ficar
6. ^ a b c d e Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. ficar
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 3290
8. ^ a b Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 363
9. ^ 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. ficar
10. ^ 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. ficar
11. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. s.v. ficar
12. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. ficher
13. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
14. ^ Lopes, Graça Videira; Ferreira, Manuel Pedro et al. (2011–), Cantigas Medievais Galego-Portuguesas [online database], Lisboa: Instituto de Estudos Medievais, FCSH/NOVA, https://cantigas.fcsh.unl.pt, p. s.v. ficar
15. ^ a b Viterbo, Joaquim de Santa Rosa de (1798–1799), Elucidario das palavras, termos e frases que em Portugal antiguamente se usárão, 2 vols., Lisboa: Simão Thaddeo Ferreira, p. 2, 42
16. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 29
17. ^ a b Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. s.v. ficar
18. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. ficar
19. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. ficar
20. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. ficar
21. ^ a b c d Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 4278
22. ^ a b c d e Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. ficar