herdar

Forms

herdar (first-person singular present herdo, first-person singular preterite herdei, past participle herdado)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote erdar beside herdar; the spelling with h- prevails from the 15th century.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin hērēditō (“to inherit”), written Old Galician-Portuguese erdar in the oldest texts.^[2][3][1][4] Nascentes derives it through *herdidar, shortened by haplology, and Houaiss gives this view as Nascentes's and Cunha's.^[2][5][6] Machado instead held that the verb was formed on herdeiro.^[2][5][6]

The same Latin verb is Galician herdar, Spanish heredar, Catalan heretar, Occitan eiretar, French hériter and Italian ereditare.^[7][8][1] The French verb is a remaking of an older *hereter.^[9]

The Late Latin verb belongs to the Latin of the early Bible versions.^[1][10] Wiktionary explains it as a calque of κληρονομέω (klēronoméō), formed on hērēditās (“inheritance”) with haplology.^[1][10] The noun is from hērēs (“heir”).^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Latin charters already use the Romance verb: one of 1084 has herdovos filios meos “I make you, my sons, my heirs”, and Houaiss's first date, 1092, is the participle erdado in such a charter.^[4][2] Machado dates the first Portuguese record to 1267, and Cunha puts erdar and herdar in the 13th century.^[4][3] The Galician Historia Troiana has the sense “to inherit”: aquel avia de herdar “that one was to inherit”.^[4]

Semantic evolution

In the medieval language the verb also meant “to make someone an heir, to endow with estates”: the Crónica Geral tells of a monastery that a king herdara de muytas bõas herdades “had endowed with many good estates”.^[4] Morais (1813) still gives first the sense “to institute someone as heir”, with Resende's muitos herdão aos estranhos, e desherdão suas almas “many make strangers their heirs and disinherit their souls”.^[11] Priberam marks this sense as old, and Houaiss records “to bequeath” as little used.^[2][12]

The figurative uses grew from the legal one: inheriting traits and illnesses from one's parents, receiving things that belonged to others, and taking over a predecessor's problems.^[2][13][14] In computing, a class in object-oriented programming inherits the properties of another.^[15]

Timeline

• 1084 – a Latin charter has herdovos filios meos.^[4]
• 1092 – the participle erdado in a Latin charter.^[2]
• 1267 – Machado's first date for the Portuguese verb.^[4]
• 13th century – the spellings erdar and herdar.^[2][3]
• 1385 – a notarial book of Noia has auer et herdar “to have and inherit”.^[4]
• 1416 – the Vida de Santo Aleixo uses the verb.^[16]
• 1697 – Pereira glosses it with Latin haeredem esse.^[17]
• 1813 – Morais gives first the sense “to institute someone as heir”.^[11]

Meanings

Verb

1. To inherit, receive property at someone's death by succession or bequest: Herdou do avô uma quinta no Minho.^[2][13][1]
2. To succeed to a throne or title.^[2]
3. To come to have or use something that belonged to someone else: herdou o casaco do irmão mais velho.^[2][14]
4. To be left with a situation by one's predecessor: herdou uma empresa endividada.^[2][18]
5. To receive a trait from one's ancestors by heredity: herdou o feitio da mãe.^[2][13][1]
6. (rare) To leave as an inheritance, to bequeath.^[2][15]
7. (archaic) To make someone one's heir.^[12][11]
8. (computing) In object-oriented programming, to acquire the properties of another class.^[15]

Word family

• deserdar

Related words

• herança
• herdeiro
• hereditariedade
• hereditário
• herdade
• Latin hērēditās
• Spanish heredar

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. herdar
3. ^ a b c d Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. herança
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. herdar
5. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. herdar
6. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 258
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 4113
8. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. hereditare
9. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. hériter
10. ^ a b Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. heredito
11. ^ a b c Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 113
12. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. herdar
13. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. herdar
14. ^ 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. herdar
15. ^ a b c 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. herdar
16. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. herdar
17. ^ 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. herdar
18. ^ 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. herdar