gastar

Forms

gastar (first-person singular present gasto, first-person singular preterite gastei, past participle gastado, short past participle gasto)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese also wrote guastar, recorded in the 14th century.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin vāstō (“to lay waste, ravage”), written Old Galician-Portuguese gastar and Old Galician-Portuguese guastar in the oldest texts.^[2][3][1] Its initial /g/ is due to a Germanic word: Houaiss and Cunha name the root Proto-Germanic *wōstjan (“to lay waste”), and Wiktionary the descendants of Frankish *wōstī (“waste”).^[2][3][1] Corominas explains that the Latin verb was pronounced *wastō in late times under the influence of the West Germanic verb, and Wiktionary that the expected /ɡw/ was reduced to /g/ before an unstressed syllable.^[4][1] The learned doublet is vastar.^[2][1]

The same blend is Spanish gastar, Catalan gastar, Italian guastare and French gâter.^[5][6][1]

The Latin verb is formed on vāstus (“empty, desolate”).^[7][1] De Vaan reconstructs *h₁u(e)h₂-sto- for the adjective and compares fás (“empty”) and the Germanic adjective *wōstiz, the source of wuosti.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Cunha dates the verb to the 13th century, with guastar in the 14th.^[3] In a cantiga d'escarnho by Pero Viviaez it means “to eat, consume”: Pois ben nen mal do jantar non gastou “since he ate neither well nor badly of the dinner”.^[9][10] The prose of the 14th century has both the old sense “to lay waste”, in the Crónica Geral (sua terra … quebrantada et guastada “their land broken and laid waste”), and that of spending wealth, in the chronicle of 1344 (gastousse hy o mais do auer “most of the money was spent there”).^[9]

Semantic evolution

The Latin sense “to lay waste” survives only in the medieval texts;^[9][11] Portuguese, like Spanish, turned the verb to the consumption of goods and money.^[9][11] Cardoso (1569) glosses it with consumo “to use up”, and Barbosa (1611) has gastar a idade and gastar o tempo “to spend one's life, one's time”.^[12][13] Bluteau (1712–1728) puts first the spending of money, and Morais (1789) adds “to destroy, damage”, “to wear out with use” and “to digest”.^[14][15]

Modern senses include wearing a thing down by friction, using up fuel or time and weakening a person's strength; the reflexive gastar-se is “to wear out” and, in Portugal, “to sell, find buyers”.^[2][16][17] Priberam also records a Portuguese student use, “to fail someone in an exam”.^[17]

Timeline

• 1200s – first record.^[3]
• 1300s – the spelling guastar.^[2][3]
• 1344 – gastousse hy o mais do auer in the chronicle of 1344.^[9]
• c. 1430 – gastar in the Horto do Esposo.^[18]
• 1569 – Cardoso glosses it consumo.^[12]
• 1611 – Barbosa lists gastar o tempo.^[13]
• 1789 – Morais records “to wear out with use” and “to digest”.^[15]

Meanings

Verb

1. To spend money: Gastámos pouco nas férias.^[2][19][1]
2. To spend wastefully; to squander, dissipate.^[2][20]
3. To wear down or out by use or friction: gastar as solas.^[2][20][21]
4. To use up, consume (fuel, energy, time): O carro gasta pouca gasolina.^[2][19][1]
5. To damage, destroy; to weaken, exhaust a person's strength or health.^[2][20]
6. To let time go by; to spend (a day, an hour).^[2][13]
7. (reflexive) To wear out; to run out, be used up.^[2][16]
8. (reflexive, Portugal) To sell, find buyers.^[16][17]
9. To digest.^[21][17]

Word family

• gasto
• gastador
• desgastar
• desgaste
• agastar
• malgastar

Related words

• vastar
• devastar
• vasto
• Latin vāstō
• Spanish gastar
• Italian guastare

Usage notes

The past participle has a regular form gastado and a short form gasto;^[1][3] gasto is also a noun, “expense”.^[1][3] Porto Editora records the saying gastar cera com ruins defuntos “to waste wax on bad corpses”, to make sacrifices for someone who does not deserve them.^[16]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. gastar
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. gastar
4. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 121
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 9168
6. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. vastare
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. uastō
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. vāstus
9. ^ 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. gastar
10. ^ 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. gastar
11. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. gastar
12. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. gastar
13. ^ a b c Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. gastar
14. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. gastar
15. ^ 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, 654
16. ^ a b c d Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 4626
17. ^ a b c d Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. gastar
18. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. gastar
19. ^ 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. gastar
20. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. gastar
21. ^ a b 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. gastar