fugir

Forms

fugir (first-person singular present fujo, third-person singular present foge, first-person singular preterite fugi, past participle fugido)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote both fugir and fogir, with forms such as fuge, fogia, fugiu and fogisse.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *fugīre (“to flee”), written Old Galician-Portuguese fugir and Old Galician-Portuguese fogir in the oldest texts.^[1][3] Cunha dates the Late Latin infinitive to the 3rd century and derives it from the classical Latin fugere (“to run away, flee”).^[4][5] Romance generally presupposes this Vulgar Latin base, which García de Diego explains by the model of īre and venīre.^[6][7] Nascentes calls the Portuguese verb a semi-learned outcome of the Latin one.^[8]

The same Latin verb is Galician fuxir, Spanish huir, Catalan fugir, French fuir, Italian fuggire and Romanian fugi.^[9][1]

The Latin verb goes back to *fugiō and to Proto-Indo-European *bʰewg- (“to flee”), whose other descendants include Ancient Greek φεύγω (pheúgō, “I flee”).^[1][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

A Latin text of 1124 in the Portugaliae Monumenta Historica already has the participle in de fugido de mauro, and a legal text of 1209 the Romance phrase ningun ome que fugir de bolta “no man who flees from the fight”.^[11][5] In the Cantigas de Santa Maria the verb means “to run away” from danger or from the devil (con pavor fugia “he fled in fear”).^[11]

Semantic evolution

The sense “to run away, escape” has been constant since the medieval texts, which also have it with an object, “to avoid”.^[11][5] Barbosa (1611) and Bluteau gloss it with Latin fugere and in fugam se dare, and Bluteau's book of synonyms adds “to vanish” and “to slip away”.^[12][13] Later dictionaries record transferred senses: things that slip out of the hand or the memory, time that passes quickly, and the shore that seems to recede from a moving ship.^[5][14] Silva Bastos notes that in Beira and the Algarve the verb also means simply “to run”, and the dialect surveys of the TLPGP record the same sense in Portugal.^[15][16] Brazilian Portuguese has a large stock of popular synonyms, such as dar no pé and cair fora.^[17]

Timeline

• 1124 – the participle fugido in a Latin text.^[11][5]
• 1209 – ningun ome que fugir de bolta in a legal text.^[11]
• 13th century – the cantigas use fugir and fogir.^[2][4]
• 1416 – first record in the CTA, in the Vida de Santo Aleixo.^[18]
• 1569 – Cardoso's dictionary glosses fugir with Latin fugio.^[19]
• 1712 – Bluteau defines it as running to free oneself from a danger.^[13]
• 1912 – Silva Bastos records the sense “to run” in Beira and the Algarve.^[15]

Meanings

Verb

1. To flee, run away from a danger, a threat or something unpleasant: O gato fugiu do cão.^[5][17][1]
2. Of troops, to retreat in disorder; to leave a place in haste.^[5][17]
3. To escape from a place of confinement.^[20][21]
4. To leave a place or region for good, for lack of prospects.^[5]
5. To avoid, keep away from someone or something: fugir às responsabilidades.^[5][14]
6. To leave the family home secretly with a lover.^[20]
7. Of a word or memory, to fail to come to mind: O nome fugiu-me.^[14][1]
8. To slip out, escape; of time, to pass quickly.^[5][14]
9. To seem to recede into the distance, as a coast seen from a ship.^[5][14]
10. (Portugal, regional) To run.^[15][16]

Word family

• fugida
• fugidio
• fujão

Related words

• afugentar
• fuga
• fugacidade
• fugaz
• fugitivo
• refúgio
• Latin fugiō
• Galician fuxir
• Spanish huir

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b 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. fogir
3. ^ 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. fogir
4. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. fuga
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. fugir
6. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 427
7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. fugere
8. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. fugir
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. fugere
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 e 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. fugir
12. ^ Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. fugir
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. fugir
14. ^ a b c d e Aulete, Francisco Júlio Caldas, Dicionário contemporâneo da língua portuguesa (1st ed. 1881), online as Aulete Digital, Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, https://aulete.com.br, p. s.v. fugir
15. ^ a b c Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. fugir
16. ^ 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. fugir
17. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. fugir
18. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. fugir
19. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. fugir
20. ^ 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. fugir
21. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 4508