imperfeito

Forms

imperfeito (feminine imperfeita, masculine plural imperfeitos, feminine plural imperfeitas)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin imperfectus (“unfinished, incomplete”), recorded from the 15th century.^[2][3][1] The Latin adjective is formed from in- (“not”) and perfectus (“finished, perfect”), the past participle of perficiō (“to finish”).^[4][5][6] The Latin participle itself became the inherited perfeito, recorded from the 14th century.^[6][7]

The grammatical noun continues the Latin grammarians' name for the tense.^[8] The same Latin word is Spanish imperfecto, Galician imperfecto, Italian imperfetto and French imparfait; the French grammatical term is recorded from the early 14th century.^[9][1][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss dates the adjective to the 15th century from Cunha's medieval index, without a quotation;^[2][7] Cunha's own entry under perfeito gives the 17th century.^[2][7] A private letter of 1588 already has the plural inperfeitos.^[11] The sense was “unfinished, incomplete”, the Latin one.^[2][8]

Semantic evolution

Bluteau (1712–1728) gives “not finished”, with obra imperfeita and conhecimento imperfeito, and two technical uses: in grammar the tempo imperfeito, a tense between present and past, as eu dizia and eu fazia; and in music, beside perfeito.^[8] Morais (1813) defines the pretérito imperfeito as the form showing that an action was going on and not yet finished at a past time.^[12]

From “unfinished” the adjective passed to “faulty, badly made” and to “not perfect by its nature”.^[2] Later dictionaries add uses in law (an act that lacks something to be complete), music (a chord of two notes) and biology (an organism that has not gone through all its stages).^[2][13][14] The noun imperfeito is now the usual name of the tense.^[13][15]

Timeline

• 15th century – first date in Houaiss.^[2]
• 1588 – inperfeitos in a private letter.^[11]
• 17th century – Cunha's date for the word.^[7]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau describes the grammatical tempo imperfeito.^[8]
• 1813 – Morais defines the pretérito imperfeito.^[12]
• 1899 – Figueiredo gives the grammatical sense of tenses expressing an incomplete state or action.^[16]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Not finished; incomplete.^{[2][15][13][1]}
2. Badly made; faulty, defective.^{[2][15][17][1]}
3. Not perfect (perfeito) by nature: Todo o ser humano é imperfeito.^[2]
4. (law) Of a legal act: lacking some feature needed for it to be complete.^[2]
5. (music) Of a chord: made up of only two notes; dissonant.^[2][13][14]
6. (botany, zoology) That has not gone through all the stages of its normal development.^[13]
7. (grammar) Of a tense: expressing an action or state in progress and not finished, chiefly in the past.^[14][18][17]

Noun

1. (grammar) The imperfect tense, the pretérito imperfeito: falava, comia and partia are forms of the imperfect.^[2][13][15]

Related words

• perfeito
• imperfeição
• mais-que-perfeito
• Latin imperfectus
• Spanish imperfecto

Usage notes

The Capelas Imperfeitas of the monastery of Batalha in Portugal keep the old sense “unfinished”.^[15] Brazilian grammar speaks of the imperfeito do subjuntivo, Portuguese grammar of the imperfeito do conjuntivo.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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. imperfeito
3. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. imperfeito
4. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. imperfectus
5. ^ 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, 1040
6. ^ a b Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. perfeito
7. ^ a b c d Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. perfeito
8. ^ a b c d Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. imperfeito
9. ^ Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. imperfecto
10. ^ Trésor de la langue française informatisé (2004), ATILF – CNRS & Université de Lorraine, atilf.fr/tlfi; electronic version of Imbs, Paul; Quemada, Bernard, eds. (1971–1994), Trésor de la langue française, Paris: CNRS / Gallimard, p. s.v. imparfait
11. ^ a b 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. imperfeito
12. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 134
13. ^ a b c d e f 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. imperfeito
14. ^ a b c Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. imperfeito
15. ^ a b c d e Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. imperfeito
16. ^ Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. 732
17. ^ a b Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 5110
18. ^ 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. imperfeito