gostar

Forms

gostar (first-person singular present gosto, first-person singular preterite gostei, past participle gostado)^[1] Houaiss's earliest dated form is the participle gostado in the 15th century.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin gustō (“to taste”), written Old Galician-Portuguese gostar in the oldest texts.^[2][1][3] Houaiss derives the learned gustar from the same Latin verb.^[2]

The same Latin verb is Galician gustar, Old Spanish gostar (now Spanish gustar), Catalan gustar, French goûter, Italian gustare and Romanian gusta.^[4][1]

Wiktionary derives the Latin verb from an unattested participle meaning “tasted”, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵustós and the root *ǵews- (“to taste”);^[1] Houaiss puts it in the same root as Ancient Greek γεύω (geúō, “to give a taste of”).^[1][2] Cunha treats the verb in the article on the noun gosto, although he dates the verb (13th century) earlier than the noun (15th century).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The verb is in the Cantigas de Santa Maria in its Latin sense “to taste”: da maçãa que gostou “of the apple she tasted”, and agua coller non pude, nen sol bever nen gostar “I could not take water, nor even drink nor taste it”.^[6] A cantiga d'escarnho uses it of love: fazer-vos-á chorar, se o gostades “it will make you weep if you taste it”.^[6][7]

Semantic evolution

Nascentes calls “to taste” the old sense and “to find to one's taste” the modern one.^[3] Cardoso (1569) still glosses it as provar “to taste, try”, but Pereira (1697) has “to take pleasure”, and Bluteau (1712–1728) gives gostar de alguma cousa in both the literal and the figurative sense.^[8][9][10] Morais (1789) records the use for affection towards a person, with and without de.^[11] Meyer-Lübke records a Portuguese sense “to love”.^[4] Figueiredo (1899) puts the intransitive senses “to find pleasant, to feel pleasure, to be fond of” before the transitive “to taste, try”, and Houaiss lists the transitive “to taste” and “to enjoy” after all the senses with de.^[12][2]

Timeline

• 13th century – first records, in the Cantigas de Santa Maria, in the sense “to taste”.^[2][6]
• 15th century – the participle gostado.^[2]
• c. 1430 – gostar in the Horto do Esposo, its first text in the CTA corpus.^[13]
• 1569 – Cardoso glosses it provar.^[8]
• 1697 – Pereira glosses it “to take pleasure”.^[9]
• 1789 – Morais records gostar de alguém “to be fond of someone”.^[11]

Meanings

Verb

1. (with de) To like, to find pleasant: Gosto muito de música brasileira.^[2][1]
2. (with de) To like the taste of: Ela não gosta de peixe.^[2]
3. (with de, also reflexive) To be fond of, to love (a person): Os dois gostam-se muito.^[2][1]
4. (with de) To approve of: O chefe gostou do relatório.^[2]
5. (with de) To be in the habit of, to like to: Gosta de acordar cedo.^[2]
6. (with de) To do well in, to thrive with: Estas plantas não gostam de sol forte.^[2]
7. (transitive) To taste, to try (food or drink).^[2][12]
8. (transitive) To enjoy (pleasures or comforts).^[2]

Related words

• gosto
• gostoso
• degustar
• Latin gustō
• Spanish gustar

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. gostar
3. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. gostar
4. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
5. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. gosto
6. ^ 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. gostar
7. ^ 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. gostar
8. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. gostar
9. ^ a b Pereira, Bento (1697), Thesouro da lingoa portuguesa, in the 1697 edition of his Prosodia (1st ed. 1647; CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. gostar
10. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. gostar
11. ^ 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, 63
12. ^ a b Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. 673
13. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. gostar