mentir

Forms

mentir (first-person singular present minto, third-person singular present mente, first-person singular preterite menti, past participle mentido)^[1] Houaiss records metir and mintyr in the 14th century.^[2] The cantigas have the first person menço and the subjunctive mença, beside the later minto.^[3] Feijó (1734) prescribes mentir, not mintir.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin mentior (“to lie”), through the active infinitive that Late Latin used in place of the deponent, written Old Galician-Portuguese mentir in the oldest texts.^[2][5][6][1] Forms with /i/ in the first syllable, such as the 14th-century mintyr, show the /e/ assimilated to the stressed /i/, as Nunes explained.^[7][2]

The same Latin word is Galician mentir, Spanish mentir, Catalan mentir, French mentir and Italian mentire.^[8][1]

The Latin verb is derived from mēns (“mind”);^[9][1][5] Wiktionary explains the sense “to lie” from “to be inventive, to imagine”, and traces the noun to Proto-Indo-European *méntis.^[9][1][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The verb is recorded from the 13th century.^[2][5] In the cantigas d'amigo it is intransitive, and por non mentir and sen todo mentir mean “to tell the truth, frankly”;^[3][10] Universo Cantigas also gives a transitive sense “to deceive, break an agreement”.^[3][10]

Semantic evolution

Bluteau (1712–1728) explains it as saying the opposite of what one has in mind.^[11] Morais (1789) adds the senses “to fail, disappoint”, said of a hope, and “to feign”.^[12] Modern dictionaries keep “to fail, not to thrive” for plants and “to degenerate” in phrases such as bom sangue não mente; the DLP adds technical senses in carpentry and of a boat that does not answer the helm.^[2][13][14] From São Paulo to Rio Grande do Sul queimar campo is a synonym.^[15]

Timeline

• 13th century – first record.^[2][5]
• 14th century – the spellings metir and mintyr.^[2]
• 1611 – Barbosa renders it by Latin mentior.^[16]
• 1734 – Feijó rejects the spelling mintir.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To lie, to say what one knows to be false: Não me mintas!^[2][17][1]
2. To deceive, to give a false impression: As aparências mentem.^[2][15][1]
3. To hide the truth about: mentir o salário.^[2]
4. To fail to keep a duty or promise: mentir à palavra.^[2][13]
5. (figurative) To fail, not to thrive; to lose one's true quality.^[2][17][1]

Word family

• mentira
• mentiroso
• desmentir
• desmentido

Related words

• mente
• Latin mentior
• Galician mentir

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 Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. mentir
3. ^ 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. mentir
4. ^ 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. mentir
5. ^ a b c d e Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. mentir
6. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. mentir
7. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 1, 327
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5510
9. ^ 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, p. s.v. mēns
10. ^ a b 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. mentir
11. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. mentir
12. ^ 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, 74
13. ^ 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. mentir
14. ^ 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. mentir
15. ^ a b Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. mentir
16. ^ Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. mentir
17. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. mentir