fundir

Forms

fundir (first-person singular present fundo, first-person singular preterite fundi, past participle fundido)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese had fonder beside fundir, fudir and fondir in the 14th century.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin fundō (“to pour, melt”).^[2][3][1] The oldest texts have Old Galician-Portuguese fonder beside Old Galician-Portuguese fundir.^[2][3][1][5] Nascentes calls it semi-learned.^[6]

The same Latin verb is Italian fondere, French fondre, Occitan fondre, Catalan fondre and Sardinian fundere.^[7] Spanish has it twice: the learned Spanish fundir “to melt”, recorded from about 1250, and the popular hundir “to sink”, which first meant “to destroy, ruin”.^[8][9]

The Latin verb goes back to *hundō, a nasal present of Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰewd- (“to pour”), an extension of *ǵʰew-; its cognates include Ancient Greek χέω (khéō, “I pour”) and Gothic 𐌲𐌹𐌿𐍄𐌰𐌽 (giutan, “to pour”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Crónica Troiana tells of statues being melted with gold and cast in a hollow mould (fonderõ nas con ouro… deytaron delas en hũ molde uão), and the Galician General Estoria says that the heat melted metals from their veins (a caentura… fondeu metaes de venas).^[4] Houaiss and Cunha date the verb to the 14th century.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

Besides melting and casting metal, the 16th- and 17th-century dictionaries record fundir “to yield, produce”, which Cardoso (1569) and Barbosa (1611) translate with Latin reddo;^[10][11][2] Houaiss still lists the sense “to give a return”.^[10][11][2] Vieira's dictionary (1871–1874) adds the figurative “to squander” and a commercial use.^[12] The sense “to merge, join into one” is recorded in Houaiss, Aurélio and the DLP, as in companies or estates that are merged.^[2][13][5] Brazilian informal speech uses it for losing one's head, fundir a cuca, and it is said of an engine that seizes or a light bulb that burns out.^[2][1]

Timeline

• 14th century – fonderõ in the Crónica Troiana;^[4][2][3] Houaiss's and Cunha's first records.^[4][2][3]
• 1518 – fũdir in the Espelho de Cristina.^[14]
• 1569 – Cardoso glosses fundir “to yield”.^[10]
• 1619 – first record in the private letters of Post Scriptum.^[15]
• 1789 – Morais defines it as melting metals.^[16]
• 1871–1874 – Vieira records the figurative sense “to squander”.^[12]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive, pronominal) To melt, make or become liquid, especially of metal; to smelt: fundir o ferro.^[2][13][1]
2. (transitive) To cast: to pour molten metal into a mould: fundir os sinos da torre.^[2][13]
3. To dissolve, break down;^[2][1] (intransitive, of an engine) to seize;^[2][1] (pronominal, of a light bulb) to burn out.^[2][1]
4. (Brazil, informal) To confuse or lose one's head: fundir a cuca.^[2]
5. To fuse, merge: to join several things into one.^[2][13][1]
6. To use up, squander: fundir uma herança.^[2][13]
7. To yield, give a return.^[2][17]

Word family

• fundição
• fundidor
• fundente
• fundido

Related words

• fusão
• fusível
• difundir
• confundir
• infundir
• Latin fundō
• Spanish hundir

Usage notes

Houaiss, Aurélio and the DLP also record a rare verb fundir “to sink, founder; to vanish little by little”, formed from fundo with the suffix -ir.^[2][13][5]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. fundir
3. ^ 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. fundir
4. ^ 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. fonder
5. ^ a b c 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. fundir
6. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. fundir
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 3581
8. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 976
9. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 428
10. ^ a b c Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. fundir
11. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. fundir
12. ^ a b Vieira, Frei Domingos (1871–1874), Grande Diccionario Portuguez ou Thesouro da lingua portugueza, 5 vols., Porto: Ernesto Chardron e Bartholomeu H. de Moraes, p. 3, 802
13. ^ a b c d e f Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. fundir
14. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. fũdir
15. ^ 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. fundir
16. ^ 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, 643
17. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. fundir