livrar

Forms

livrar (first-person singular present livro, first-person singular preterite livrei, past participle livrado)^[1] Old spellings include liurar (14th century), lyurar and libra (15th century).^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin līberō (“to set free”), written Old Galician-Portuguese livrar and Old Galician-Portuguese liurar in the oldest texts.^[2][3][4][1] Aurélio stresses that it is the popular outcome of the Latin verb, and Wiktionary names the learned doublet liberar.^[5][1]

The same Latin verb is Galician librar, Spanish librar, Catalan lliurar, Occitan liurar and French livrer.^[6][7][1]

The Latin verb is formed on the adjective līber (“free”).^[8][1] De Vaan traces it to *leuþero- and Proto-Indo-European *h₁leudʰ-ero-.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The verb appears in the Cantigas de Santa Maria of the 13th century: A Madre do que livrou / dos leões Daniel “the Mother of him who freed Daniel from the lions”.^[10] The same collection uses it of a midwife delivering a woman and for giving birth.^[10]

Semantic evolution

In the medieval language it also meant “to settle, dispatch, obtain”: in a satirical cantiga Martin Moxa speaks of everyone who comes to court por livrar algo “to get something done”.^[10][11] Viterbo found the sense “to decide, dispatch” in a document of 1390.^[12]

Barbosa (1611) lists it with livrador and livramento, and Morais (1813) gives the meanings “to rescue from harm”, “to defend from a charge” and the intransitive “to escape”.^[13][14] The old sense “to give birth” survives regionally in the Minho, and in popular speech for expelling the placenta.^[15][16][17] In horse racing a winner is said to livrar a length over the runner-up.^[2] In Rio Grande do Sul it also means to take a certain time to finish a task.^[18]

Timeline

• 13th century – livrou in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[10][2][3]
• 14th century – the spelling liurar and the first record of livramento.^[2][3]
• 1390 – a document uses it for “to decide, dispatch”.^[12]
• c. 1440 – livrar in the Vida do honrado Infante Josafat (copy 1431–1446).^[19]
• 1611 – Barbosa lists livrar, livrador and livramento.^[13]
• 1813 – Morais gives a bom livrar and the intransitive “to escape”.^[14]
• 1912 – Silva Bastos records the Minho sense “to give birth”.^[15]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive and pronominal) To set or get free; to release from captivity: livraram o refém.^[2][5][1]
2. (transitive and pronominal) To save or get out of a dangerous or difficult situation.^[2][1]
3. (pronominal) To get rid of something or someone troublesome: livrou-se das dívidas.^[2][1]
4. (transitive) To guard, preserve, invoking God: Deus me livre!^[2][20]
5. (transitive) To exempt.^[16][1]
6. (horse racing) Of a horse, to gain a lead of a head, a neck or a length.^[2]
7. (Portugal, regional) To give birth; to expel the placenta.^[16][17]

Word family

• livramento
• livrador

Related words

• livre
• liberar
• libertar
• Latin līberō
• Spanish librar

Usage notes

Deus me livre! “God forbid!” is a fixed exclamation.^[2][20]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. livrar
3. ^ a b c Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. livre
4. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. livrar
5. ^ a b Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. livrar
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. liberare
7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. liberare
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. līberō
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. ^ 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. livrar
11. ^ Universo Cantigas: Glosario da poesía medieval profana galego-portuguesa, A Coruña: Instituto da Lingua e Literatura (ILLA), Universidade da Coruña, https://www.universocantigas.gal, p. s.v. livrar
12. ^ a b Viterbo, Joaquim de Santa Rosa de (1798–1799), Elucidario das palavras, termos e frases que em Portugal antiguamente se usárão, 2 vols., Lisboa: Simão Thaddeo Ferreira, p. 2, 95
13. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. livrar
14. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 231
15. ^ a b Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. livrar
16. ^ a b c Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. livrar
17. ^ 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. livrar
18. ^ Schlee, Aldyr Garcia (2019), Dicionário da Cultura Pampeana Sul-Rio-Grandense, 2 vols., Pelotas: Fructos do Paiz, p. s.v. livrar
19. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. livrar
20. ^ a b 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. livrar