imaginar

Forms

imaginar (first-person singular present imagino, first-person singular preterite imaginei, past participle imaginado)^[1] The 14th-century records write emaginar and enmaginar.^[2][3] Feijó in 1734 still warns against the spelling esmaginar.^[4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin imāginor (“to picture to oneself, imagine”), a learned word.^[2][1][5] Cunha, Nascentes, the DLP and Aurélio give the active form imāginō, which Houaiss finds in Aulus Gellius in the sense “to show an image”, of a mirror.^{[3][5][6][7][2]} The verb is formed from Latin imāgō (“image, likeness”).^[8][1] De Vaan derives the noun, like imitor (“to imitate”), from an older verb, and reconstructs Proto-Indo-European *h₂i-m-h₂- (“image”), with the cognate Hittite himma- (“imitation, substitute”).^[9]

Old Portuguese also had a popular form, Old Galician-Portuguese magiar, beside Catalan esmagenar and dialectal Spanish maginar.^[10][11] The learned form is Spanish imaginar, Galician imaxinar, Catalan imaginar, French imaginer, Italian immaginare and Romanian imagina.^[1][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss and Cunha date the verb to the 14th century, in the spellings emaginar and enmaginar.^[2][3] Cardoso's dictionary of 1569 glosses it with Latin imaginor and coniecto “to conjecture”, so that “to picture” and “to suppose” were both current then.^[12]

Semantic evolution

Barbosa (1611) gives imaginar as another word for cuidar “to think”, with Latin coniicio, cogito and meditor.^[13] Bluteau defines it as forming the idea of something in the imagination, and also “to think, believe”, as in imagina que he muyto rico “he fancies he is very rich”, the source of the reflexive imaginar-se “to fancy oneself”.^[14] Morais (1789) adds “to feign” and “to devise”, and Figueiredo the intransitive “to brood, fret”.^[15][16] In informal speech the imperative imagina! marks what is said as surprising.^[6]

Timeline

• 1300s – first records, spelt emaginar and enmaginar.^[2][3]
• 1556 – imãginãdo in a private letter, the earliest in the Post Scriptum collection.^[17]
• 1569 – Cardoso glosses it with Latin imaginor and coniecto.^[12]
• 1611 – Barbosa makes it a synonym of cuidar “to think”.^[13]
• 1734 – Feijó rejects the spelling esmaginar.^[4]
• 1789 – Morais adds “to feign” and “to devise”.^[15]
• 1899 – Figueiredo records the intransitive “to brood”.^[16]

Meanings

Verb

1. To picture in the mind, to form an image of something not present: Imagina uma praia deserta.^[2][7][6]
2. To invent, to devise: Imaginou um enredo novo para o filme.^[2][18]
3. To suppose, to presume: Imaginei que já tinhas saído.^[7][6]
4. (reflexive) To fancy oneself: Imagina-se um grande pintor.^[19][18]
5. (intransitive) To brood, to fret (cismar).^[16][20]
6. (informal) Imagina!, an exclamation that presents what follows or precedes as surprising.^[6]

Related words

• imagem
• imaginação
• imaginário
• Latin imāgō

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. imaginar
3. ^ a b c d Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. imagem
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. imaginar
5. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. imaginar
6. ^ a b c d e 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. imaginar
7. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. imaginar
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. imāginor
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 4274
11. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954)
12. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. imaginar
13. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. imaginar
14. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. imaginar
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, 94
16. ^ a b c Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. 728
17. ^ 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. imaginar
18. ^ 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. imaginar
19. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. imaginar
20. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 5084