lavrar

Forms

lavrar (first-person singular present lavro, first-person singular preterite lavrei, past participle lavrado)^[1] Houaiss records lavrar and lavraran in the 13th century and the spelling laueraua in 1346.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin labōrō (“to work, toil”), written Old Galician-Portuguese lavrar in the oldest texts.^[2][3][4][1] The Latin verb is formed from labor (“toil, labour”).^[5][1] Houaiss and Cunha treat it as the popular form beside the learned laborar and lavorar, which continue the same Latin verb.^[2][3]

The same Latin verb is Galician labrar, Spanish labrar, Asturian llabrar, Catalan llaurar and Italian lavorare.^[6][7][1]

Nascentes reports that Nunes started from a syncopated Latin *labrō, while the noun lavoura points rather to an older form Old Galician-Portuguese lavorar that later lost its middle vowel; he adds that Cornu found the change of /br/ to /vr/ odd.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The verb is recorded from the 13th century.^[2][3] The Cantigas de Santa Maria already use it in three senses: building (a church that someone saw lavrar e pintar, “built and painted”), needlework (a woman who promised not to lavrar on the Sabbath) and field work (oxen con que lavrar fosse, “to plough with”).^[9] A cantiga d'escarnho by Afonso X speaks of lands that are ben lavradas, well tilled.^[9]

Semantic evolution

In Latin the verb meant to work or toil in general; in Medieval Latin it was also used for ploughing and for making things.^[5][10] Nascentes notes that Portuguese narrowed it to work on the land, as Spanish and French did with their forms of the verb, and that, like Spanish, it also kept a sense of working wood.^[4][8] Old Portuguese still used it for sewing and embroidery, a sense the REW records only for the old language.^[6][9]

Houaiss dates the senses of minting coins and of working stone to the 14th century.^[2] Bluteau in 1712 describes several ways of ploughing, such as lavrar de camalhão, leaving a raised ridge between the furrows.^[11] Morais in 1813 extends the verb to any handwork (bridges, temples, statues, pottery) and quotes a chronicle in which wet gunpowder could not lavrar, that is, burn.^[12] Vieira records the figurative use for a plague or an epidemic that spreads and does damage.^[13] In legal language the verb came to mean drawing up a deed, a sentence or a decree in writing.^[2][14]

Timeline

• 13th century – first records of lavrar.^[2][3]
• 13th century, second half – the Cantigas de Santa Maria use the verb for building, sewing and ploughing.^[9]
• 14th century – first records of the senses “to mint coins” and “to work stone”.^[2]
• 1346 – the spelling laueraua.^[2]
• 1544 – first record in the private letters of the Post Scriptum corpus.^[15]
• 1712 – Bluteau describes the kinds of ploughing.^[11]
• 1813 – Morais defines the verb as making any work by hand.^[12]
• 1871 – Vieira records the sense of a plague that spreads.^[13]

Meanings

Verb

1. To plough and turn over the soil; to till or cultivate land: Os bois lavraram o campo antes das chuvas.^[2][16][17]
2. To embroider; to decorate with needlework.^[2][14]
3. To carve ornaments into metal, leather or other material; to chisel.^[2][18]
4. To mint coins.^[2][14]
5. (rare) To work or dress stone; to build in stonework.^[2]
6. (rare) To smooth wood with a plane.^[2][16]
7. (figurative) To furrow or wear away; to erode: O mar lavrou a falésia ao longo dos séculos.^[2][18]
8. To work a mine or quarry.^[2][17]
9. (figurative) To engrave or inscribe deeply.^[2][14]
10. (intransitive) To spread gradually, said of a fire, an epidemic or a conflict: O incêndio continuou a lavrar pela serra.^[2][17][19]
11. (law) To draw up in writing; to issue a deed, a sentence or a decree: O notário lavrou a escritura.^[2][17]
12. (law) To put on record, in writing or orally, such as a protest.^[2][14]

Word family

• lavra
• lavrador

Related words

• colaborar
• elaborar
• labor
• laborador
• laboral
• laborar
• laboratório
• laboriosamente
• laboriosidade
• laborioso
• lavoura
• Spanish labrar

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 h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. lavrar
3. ^ a b c d Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. lavrar
4. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. lavrar
5. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. labōrō
6. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 4810
7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. laborare
8. ^ 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. 292
9. ^ a b c d 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. lavrar
10. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. laborare
11. ^ 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. lavrar
12. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 210
13. ^ a b 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, 1274
14. ^ a b c d e 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. lavrar
15. ^ 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. lavrar
16. ^ a b Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. lavrar
17. ^ a b c d Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 5611
18. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. lavrar
19. ^ Schlee, Aldyr Garcia (2019), Dicionário da Cultura Pampeana Sul-Rio-Grandense, 2 vols., Pelotas: Fructos do Paiz, p. s.v. lavrar