mercar

Forms

mercar (first-person singular present merco, first-person singular preterite merquei, past participle mercado)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *mercō (“to trade, buy”), an active form that replaced the deponent verb Latin mercor (“to trade, buy”).^[2][3][4][1] The OLD cites the active form from a papyrus.^[5] The Latin verb is formed from merx (“goods, merchandise”).^[5][1]

The same verb is Galician mercar, Spanish mercar, Catalan mercar and Italian mercare.^[6][1][7]

De Vaan relates the Latin noun to the name of the god Mercurius and supposes that both come from an Etruscan word of trade.^[8][1] Wiktionary reports that Nikolaev and Matasović have since proposed Indo-European etymologies.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Lorenzo cites a Latin charter of 1095 with uolens mercari “wishing to trade” and gives Machado's date of 1124.^[9] The Cantigas de Santa Maria have Ben mercamos “we have made a good bargain” and nas feiras u mercava “at the fairs where he traded”, and a cantiga d'escarnho of Johan Airas says of a man dizen que mercou atan mal “they say he bargained so badly”.^[9][10] The Crónica Troiana has nõ podemos mellor mercar ca en conprar nosas uidas “we can make no better bargain than to buy our lives”.^[9]

Semantic evolution

Viterbo explains that in the old language the verb meant not only buying but also contracting and exchanging, any lawful trade, citing an instrument of 1306, and that mercar mui mal meant to act rashly.^[11] Camões used it figuratively in the Lusíadas: Que com trabalhos glória eterna merque “who with labours may win eternal glory”.^[12][13]

Bluteau (1712–1728) calls mercar a provincial word for comprar and says he often heard courtiers condemn it.^[14] In the dialects of Portugal it still simply means “to buy”, with a variant marcar.^[15] In Bahia it means to cry one's wares in the street.^[2][16]

Timeline

• 1095 – mercari in a Latin charter.^[9]
• 13th century – the Cantigas de Santa Maria and the cantigas d'escarnho use the verb.^[9][2][3]
• 1306 – cambhar e mercar “exchange and trade” in a deed of attorney.^[11]
• 15th century – the form mercear.^[2]
• 1496 – its first text in the CTA corpus, the História de mui nobre Vespasiano.^[17]
• 1569 – Cardoso renders mercar by Latin mercor.^[18]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau calls it a provincial word.^[14]
• 1734 – Feijó glosses it as comprar.^[19]

Meanings

Verb

1. To buy in order to sell again; to trade.^[2][20][21]
2. To buy: Merquei dois quilos de laranjas.^[2][20][21]
3. (Brazil, Bahia) To cry one's wares for sale; to hawk.^[2][20][16]
4. (figurative) To win or obtain with toil and sacrifice.^[2][20]

Word family

• merca

Related words

• mercado
• mercador
• mercadoria
• mercante
• comprar
• Latin merx
• Spanish mercar

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. mercar
3. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. mercar
4. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. mercar
5. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. mercor
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. mercare
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. 327
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ a b c d e 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. mercar
10. ^ Lopes, Graça Videira; Ferreira, Manuel Pedro et al. (2011–), Cantigas Medievais Galego-Portuguesas [online database], Lisboa: Instituto de Estudos Medievais, FCSH/NOVA, https://cantigas.fcsh.unl.pt, p. s.v. mercar
11. ^ 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, 130
12. ^ Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 290
13. ^ Vieira, Frei Domingos (1871–1874), Grande Diccionario Portuguez ou Thesouro da lingua portugueza, 5 vols., Porto: Ernesto Chardron e Bartholomeu H. de Moraes, p. 4, 208
14. ^ 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. mercar
15. ^ Instituto da Lingua Galega, Tesouro do léxico patrimonial galego e portugués (TLPGP), Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, https://ilg.usc.gal/tesouro, p. s.v. mercar
16. ^ a b Navarro, Fred (2004), Dicionário do Nordeste, São Paulo: Estação Liberdade, p. s.v. mercar
17. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. mercar
18. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. mercar
19. ^ 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. mercar
20. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. mercar
21. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. mercar