moer

Forms

moer (first-person singular present moo, first-person singular preterite moí, past participle moído)^[1] Houaiss records mooe in 1365, moer in the 14th century and muy in the 15th.^[2] Feijó in 1734 gives the present eu móo, tu móes, elle móe.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin molō (“to grind in a mill”), written Old Galician-Portuguese moer in the oldest texts.^[2][4][5][1]

The same Latin word is Galician moer, Spanish moler, Catalan moldre, Occitan molre and French moudre.^[6][1] It passed into Basque as molitu (“to beat”).^[6]

The Latin verb goes back to Proto-Indo-European *melh₂- (“to crush, grind”), which also gave mola (“millstone”), the source of mó.^[7][1] Wiktionary compares the English meal “ground grain”.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss's first record is mooe, in a text of 1365 from Cunha's slips.^[2] The DDGM's glossaries add the Crónica Troiana, where things are ground en poluos “to dust”, and a satirical cantiga about a woman who makes good cheese pastries and knows how to grind and knead.^[8][9] The first sense is to grind grain or anything else to powder.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Bluteau in 1712 explains moer as crushing with a millstone, and records the painter's pedra de moer for grinding colours and moer alguém com pancadas “to beat someone black and blue”.^[10] Barbosa's dictionary of 1611 already has moer-se “to get vexed”.^[11] Morais in 1789 adds the sugar mills, where cane is ground to extract its juice, and moer a paciência “to wear down someone's patience”.^[12] The figurative senses “to tire out”, “to pester”, “to torment” and “to go over and over in the mind” are all in the modern dictionaries.^[2][13][14]

Priberam records a Brazilian sense “to make envious”, and Porto Editora the phrase moer o bicho do ouvido a alguém “to pester someone with requests”.^[15][16]

Timeline

• 1365 – first record, the form mooe.^[2]
• 14th century – the infinitive moer.^[2][4]
• 1431–1446 – moer in the Dez Mandamentos da Ley de Moisés.^[17]
• 1569 – Cardoso's dictionary renders it by Latin molo.^[18]
• 1611 – Barbosa records moer-se “to get vexed”.^[11]
• 1712 – Bluteau records moer alguém com pancadas.^[10]
• 1789 – Morais records the grinding of sugar cane and moer a paciência.^[12]

Meanings

Verb

1. To grind, mill; to crush to powder: moer o milho para a broa.^[2][13][1]
2. To press (sugar cane, olives) to extract the juice.^[2][13][19]
3. To crush, break into small pieces.^[2][1]
4. Of a mill, to work, be grinding.^[2][20][15]
5. To exhaust, tire out;^[2][13][1] (reflexive) to wear oneself out: Moeu-se a carregar sacos o dia todo.^[2][13][1]
6. To pester, annoy, bore: Moeu-me com as mesmas queixas.^[2][13][1]
7. To torment, distress;^[2][14][15] (reflexive) to fret: A dúvida moía-o.^[2][14][15]
8. To beat, thrash.^[2][19][14]
9. To go over (an idea, a memory) again and again in the mind.^[2][13][20]
10. To chew, ruminate (ruminar).^[13][15][20]

Word family

• moagem
• moedor

Related words

• moenda
• mó
• moinho
• moleiro
• Latin molō
• Spanish moler

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n 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 Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. moer
3. ^ 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. moer
4. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. moer
5. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. moer
6. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5642
7. ^ 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. molō
8. ^ 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. moer
9. ^ 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. moer
10. ^ 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. moer
11. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. moer
12. ^ 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, 90
13. ^ a b c d e f g h Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. moer
14. ^ a b c d 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. moer
15. ^ a b c d e Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. moer
16. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 6249
17. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. moer
18. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. moer
19. ^ 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. moer
20. ^ a b c 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. moer