mendigar

Forms

mendigar (first-person singular present mendigo, first-person singular preterite mendiguei, past participle mendigado)^[1] Houaiss records the medieval forms mendigasse (13th century), myndigam and mediga (14th century), and the learned mendicar in 1563–1570.^[2] Feijó (1734) warns against mendingar.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin mendīcō (“to beg, be a beggar”), written Old Galician-Portuguese mendigar in the oldest texts.^[2][4][5][1] Wiktionary calls it a semi-learned word.^[1] The same Latin verb is Galician mendigar, Spanish mendigar, French mendier and Italian mendicare.^[6][1]

The Latin verb is formed on mendīcus (“beggarly; beggar”), which in Latin was already a noun “beggar”.^[2][7] De Vaan lists the adjective among the derivatives of mendum (“physical blemish, fault”), so that the first sense was perhaps “having a defect, infirm”, as the DHLF suggests.^[8][9] De Vaan compares Old Irish mennar (“blemish”) as a possible Italo-Celtic cognate, and considers a further link with the PIE root for “to think” only a theoretical possibility.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The verb is recorded in the 13th century: Houaiss dates it from Cunha's slips of medieval Portuguese, and the Cantigas de Santa Maria tell of someone who in great poverty pelas portas mendigasse “went begging from door to door”.^[2][4][10] The sense was already “to ask for alms”.^[10]

Semantic evolution

Barbosa (1611) glosses the verb as asking from door to door, and Bluteau gives both “to ask for alms” and a figurative use for anything one is forced to take from others, quoting a writer who hoped Portuguese physicians would not always mendigar from the writings of other nations.^[11][12] Morais (1813) records this figurative “to seek help in other people's writings”.^[13] Today the verb also means to ask humbly or insistently for a favour, often with a disparaging tone.^[2][14][15] Cunha dates the learned derivatives mendicante and mendicidade to the 16th century and mendicância to the 18th.^[4]

Timeline

• 13th century – mendigasse in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[2][10]
• 14th century – the forms myndigam and mediga.^[2]
• 1563–1570 – the learned spelling mendicar.^[2]
• 1611 – Barbosa: to ask from door to door.^[11]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau records the figurative use.^[12]
• 1734 – Feijó prescribes mendigar, not mendingar.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive) To beg; to live on alms (esmola) and on other people's charity; to be a beggar.^[2][14][1]
2. (transitive) To ask for something as alms: mendigar um pedaço de pão.^[2][15][1]
3. (transitive, by extension) To ask humbly or insistently for something; to plead for, implore.^{[2][14][16][1]}
4. (transitive) To scrape together with difficulty the means to live.^[15][17]

Related words

• mendigo
• mendicante
• mendicidade
• mendicância
• Latin mendīcus
• Spanish mendigar

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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. mendigar
3. ^ a b Feijó, João de Morais Madureira (1734), Orthographia, ou Arte de escrever, e pronunciar com acerto a lingua portugueza, Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. mendigar
4. ^ a b c Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. mendigar
5. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. mendigar
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5492
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
10. ^ 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. mendigar
11. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. mendigar
12. ^ a b Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro)
13. ^ Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 287
14. ^ a b c 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. mendigar
15. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. mendigar
16. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 6080
17. ^ 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. mendigar