mandar

Forms

mandar (first-person singular present mando, first-person singular preterite mandei, past participle mandado)^[1] Houaiss records mandou in 1265, mãdo in 1271 and mamdo in the 15th century.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin mandō (“to entrust, commit; to order”), written Old Galician-Portuguese mandar in the oldest texts.^[2][1][3] The Latin verb is usually explained as “to put into someone's hand”, from manus (“hand”) and -dō (“to put”).^[1][4][3] The DHLF notes that this fits the sense, but that a verb of the third conjugation like vendō would then be expected.^[4] Wiktionary traces it to Proto-Italic *manuðō.^[1]

The sense “to send”, already found in Medieval Latin, took the place of mittō in Portuguese.^[5][3]

The same Latin word is Galician mandar, Spanish mandar, Catalan manar, French mander and Italian mandare.^[6][4][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss's first record is mandou in 1265.^[2] In the Cantigas de Santa Maria the verb means “to order”, often with an infinitive: ela logo soltar mandou / o seu irmão “she at once had her brother set free”; the noun use a seu mandar “at his command” is there too.^[7]

Semantic evolution

Houaiss dates the sense “to send” to the 13th century, and the cantigas already use the verb both for ordering and for sending a message or a request.^[2][8] The Crónica Troiana uses it once for moving the fingers.^[7] Pereira (1697) gives “to leave in a will” and “to send ambassadors”.^[9] Morais (1789) adds commanding an army or ships, mandar à outra vida “to kill” and mandar à estampa “to have printed”.^[10]

Informal Brazilian Portuguese uses the pronominal mandar-se for “to leave, take off”.^[2][1] In Portugal mandar vir means “to complain loudly”.^[11]

Timeline

• 1265 – mandou, Houaiss's first record.^[2]
• 1271 – the spelling mãdo.^[2]
• 13th century – the senses “to order” and “to send” in the cantigas.^[7][2]
• c. 1430 – mandar in the Horto do Esposo (copied 1390–1437).^[12]
• 1697 – Pereira: “to bequeath”, “to send ambassadors”.^[9]
• 1755 – Folqman: to order, to command an army, to send.^[13]
• 1789 – Morais lists the phrases mandar à outra vida and mandar à estampa.^[10]

Meanings

Verb

1. To order, command; to tell (someone) to do something.^[2][14][1]
2. To prescribe, require (of a law, a rule, one's conscience).^[2][14]
3. To be in charge; to rule, govern;^[2][11][1] (intransitive) to give the orders;^[2][11][1] mandar em to boss (someone) around.^[2][11][1]
4. To send, dispatch; to send as a present.^[2][14][1]
5. To send (someone) somewhere; to exile.^[2][15]
6. To throw, hurl;^[2][14][11] (informal) to land (a blow).^[2][14][11]
7. To appoint (someone) to an office.^[2][15]
8. (pronominal, Brazil, informal) To leave, take off.^[2][1]

Word family

• mando
• mandado
• mandamento
• mandante
• desmandar

Related words

• comandar
• demandar
• encomendar
• mandato
• Latin mandō
• Spanish mandar

Usage notes

Common phrases are mandar embora “to dismiss, send away”, mandar e desmandar “to do as one pleases, answering to nobody”, and mandar bugiar or mandar à fava “to send someone packing”.^[2][15]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p 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 Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. mandar
3. ^ a b c Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. mandar
4. ^ a b c Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. mander
5. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. mandare
6. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. mandare
7. ^ a b c 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. mandar
8. ^ 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. mandar
9. ^ a b Pereira, Bento (1697), Thesouro da lingoa portuguesa, in the 1697 edition of his Prosodia (1st ed. 1647; CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. mandar
10. ^ 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. 2, 51
11. ^ a b c d e f Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. mandar
12. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. mandar
13. ^ Folqman, Carlos (1755), Diccionario portuguez, e latino, Lisboa: Régia Officina Silviana (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. mandar
14. ^ a b c d e Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. mandar
15. ^ a b c Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 5899