importar

Forms

importar (first-person singular present importo, first-person singular preterite importei, past participle importado)^[1] Houaiss records the spelling ymportar in 1531, and a private letter of 1542 has ẽporta.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin importō (“to bring in, carry in; to cause”), first recorded in 1501.^[2][4][5][1] The Latin verb is made of in- (“in, into”) and portō (“to carry”).^[6][1] Houaiss notes that in Latin it already had the figurative senses “to introduce” and “to cause, bring about”.^[2]

The same Latin verb was borrowed as Spanish importar, French importer and Italian importare.^[7][8][1] In Italian it meant “to entail” around 1300 and then “to be necessary” and “to concern”, and the French verb, used by Rabelais in 1536 for “to entail, require”, was remade after the Italian or the Latin verb.^[8]

The commercial sense “to bring in goods from abroad” is, for Cunha, influenced by the English word import, and Nascentes calls it an anglicism.^[4][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The senses the 16th century records are figurative: “to cause, produce”, “to matter”, “to cost” and “to be useful, be fitting”.^[4] Houaiss dates the senses “to amount to (a sum)” and “to be of use to someone” to the same century.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Barbosa's dictionary of 1611 renders it with the Latin impersonal verbs refert and interest “it matters”, and Bluteau defines it as “to be fitting, useful and profitable to someone”.^[9][10] Morais in 1789 puts the literal sense “to bring in, introduce” first, with foreign goods as the example, and keeps “to bring about”, “to cost” and “to be important”.^[11] Cunha and Houaiss date the trade sense to 1813, the year that also gives importação and importador.^[4][2] Vieira adds the figurative use for bringing a foreign term into a language or a disease into a country.^[12]

The reflexive importar-se com “to care about, mind” is now very common, and computing gave the verb the sense of bringing a file made by another program into one's own.^[2][13] In Portugal se não se importa “if you don't mind” is a polite formula for asking a favour.^[2]

Timeline

• 1501 – first record of the verb, as Houaiss dates it.^[2]
• 1531 – the spelling ymportar.^[2]
• 1500s – Cunha's century for the senses “to cause”, “to matter”, “to cost” and “to be useful”.^[4]
• 1542 – ẽporta in a private letter.^[3]
• 1582 – first record of the derivative importância.^[4]
• 1611 – Barbosa glosses it with Latin refert and interest.^[9]
• 1789 – Morais gives “to bring in, introduce (foreign goods)” as the first sense.^[11]
• 1813 – Cunha's and Houaiss's date for the sense “to import goods”;^[1] importação and importador are recorded the same year.^[4][2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To have as a consequence; to cause, bring about: A greve importou grandes perdas.^[2][14]
2. To entail, involve: Esse cargo importa muitas responsabilidades.^[2][14]
3. (with em) To amount to a given sum: A conta importou em trezentos euros.^[2][13]
4. To matter, be important or useful (to someone): Pouco lhe importa a opinião dos vizinhos.^[2][15][1]
5. (reflexive, with com) To care about, mind: Ele não se importa com o barulho.^[2][13][1]
6. To import: to bring in goods, labour, ideas and the like from another country, state or region: O país importa quase todo o trigo que consome.^[2][15][1]
7. (computing) To bring a file or data made by another program into the one in use.^[2][13]

Word family

• importação
• importador
• importância
• importante
• importável

Related words

• exportar
• portar
• Latin importō
• Spanish importar

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 f g h i j k l m n o p q Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. importar
3. ^ 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. importar
4. ^ a b c d e f g Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. importar
5. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. importar
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ 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. importar
8. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. importer
9. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. importar
10. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. importar
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, 700
12. ^ 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, 1047
13. ^ a b c d 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. importar
14. ^ a b Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. importar
15. ^ 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. importar