guardar

Forms

guardar (first-person singular present guardo, first-person singular preterite guardei, past participle guardado)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese had both guardar and gardar.^[2][3] Feijó in 1734 still lists gardar beside guardar.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Medieval Latin wardō (“to guard, to herd”), also written with gu-, and was Old Galician-Portuguese guardar in the oldest texts.^[5][2][1][6] The Medieval Latin verb was taken from Germanic *wardōn (“to be on guard, to watch”).^[2][7][8] Aurélio and the DLP derive it from the Germanic noun *wardō (“watch, guard”), related to a root meaning “to pay attention”.^[9][10] Orel's Germanic verb gave weardian (“to guard”), wartēn (“to wait, to watch”) and varða (“to guard”).^[11]

Nascentes points out that the old sense “to look” survives in Italian guardare and in French regarder, while Portuguese and Spanish moved from “to look at” to “to look after”.^[12] Older dictionaries gave other sources: Vieira derived the verb from French garder, and Figueiredo and Silva Bastos from Old High German.^[13][14][15] A Latin law text of 1208 quoted by Cortesão already uses the Medieval Latin verb, spelt with g- or gu-, for herding cattle.^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss and Cunha date the verb to the 13th century.^[5][2] The cantigas use it for “to protect, keep watch over”, “to keep or hide”, “to keep a girl away from her lover”, “to respect or obey” and “to forbid”, as in a girl's plea to her mother, Mia madre velida, e nom me guardedes “my lovely mother, do not keep me shut away”.^[3][16] The Cancioneiro da Ajuda alludes to the proverb Guardado é quen Deus guarda “he is well kept whom God keeps”.^[17]

Semantic evolution

In the Crónica Troiana the verb means “to look after, take care of”, and the reflexive guardar-se de “to avoid, to beware of” is common in the cantigas.^[17] Cardoso (1569) and Barbosa (1611) render it with Latin custodio and servo, “to guard” and “to keep”.^[18][19] Bluteau (1712) puts “to keep, preserve” first, with phrases for storing fruit and provisions for the winter, and Morais (1813) adds “to observe” the law or one's word, and “to herd” cattle.^[20][21] Modern senses include keeping a secret, keeping a holy day free of work, and, in computing, saving a file.^[5][22][1] The verb has formed many compounds of the type guarda-chuva “umbrella” and guarda-costas “bodyguard”.^[1]

Timeline

• 1208 – a Latin law text uses the verb for herding cattle.^[12]
• 1200s – first records of guardar, of gardar, and of aguardar “to guard; to wait for”.^[5][2]
• c. 1350 – the Trasladação de S. Nicolau is the first CTA text with the verb.^[23]
• 1569 – Cardoso's Portuguese–Latin dictionary lists guardar.^[18]
• 1712 – Bluteau gives the sense “to keep, preserve” first.^[20]
• 1734 – Feijó lists the variant gardar.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To guard, to watch over in order to defend or protect: Dois soldados guardavam a ponte.^[5][9][1]
2. To look after, to tend; to herd animals.^[5][8]
3. To keep a prisoner from escaping.^[5][24]
4. To put away, to put in its proper place: Guarda os pratos no armário.^[5][9][1]
5. To keep, to preserve; to set aside for later.^[5][22][1]
6. To retain in the memory; to keep to oneself, not to reveal: guardar segredo.^[5][9]
7. To contain, to hold within.^[5][22]
8. To observe, to comply with: a law, an order, a holy day.^[5][10]
9. (computing) To save a file.^[22][1]
10. (reflexive) To beware of, to guard oneself against; to hold oneself in reserve.^[5][8]

Word family

• guarda
• guardador
• aguardar
• resguardar
• guarda-chuva
• guarda-costas
• guarda-redes

Related words

• guardião
• Spanish guardar
• Italian guardare

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. guardar
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. guardar
4. ^ a b 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. guardar
5. ^ 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. guardar
6. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. wardare
7. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. *wardōn
8. ^ a b c Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 4810
9. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. guardar
10. ^ 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. guardar
11. ^ Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 448
12. ^ a b c Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 251
13. ^ 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, 935
14. ^ Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. 685
15. ^ Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. guardar
16. ^ 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. guardar
17. ^ 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. guardar
18. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. guardar
19. ^ Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. guardar
20. ^ 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. guardar
21. ^ Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 105
22. ^ a b c d Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. guardar
23. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. guardar
24. ^ 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. guardar