montar

Forms

montar (first-person singular present monto, first-person singular preterite montei, past participle montado)^[1]

Etymology

Houaiss and Wiktionary take it as borrowed from Old French monter (“to go up”), which is from Vulgar Latin *montō (“to climb”), a verb formed on Latin mōns (“mountain”).^[2][1] Cunha, Aurélio and Michaelis instead derive it straight from the Vulgar Latin verb, which would make it an inherited word.^[3][4][5] Nascentes takes a middle view: the Latin verb, first “to climb a hill” and then simply “to go up”, came down into Portuguese, where it replaced the classical word for “to ascend” and was later itself pushed back by subir, while the sense “to get on a horse” came from French as a military term.^[6] His fuller dictionary credits Said Ali with the view that the riding sense is an old Gallicism.^[7] Houaiss also traces the senses “to set up for working” and “to equip” to French, where they are recorded in 1576 and 1671.^[2]

The same Latin verb is Italian montare, Occitan montar, Catalan muntar and Spanish montar.^[8][1] In France it displaced the classical verb for “to go up”, helped by the many words of its family.^[9]

The Latin noun goes back to Proto-Italic *monti- and Proto-Indo-European *mon-ti- (“protrusion, height”), and is related to Welsh mynydd (“mountain”).^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The verb first appears in the Cantigas de Santa Maria in the sense “to rise, fly up”, said of birds: a garça muito montou “the heron rose very high”, and falcões que montavan “falcons that were climbing”.^[11][2] The Crónica Troiana uses it for a war that “grew” and for a distance that “amounted to” fifteen leagues, and the cantigas d'amigo and d'escarnho for “to matter”: ca me non monta ben nen mal “for it matters neither good nor ill to me”.^[11][12]

Semantic evolution

Medieval documents add local senses: in 1292 a document of Lamego uses it for using the common hill land for pasture, timber, firewood and hunting, and in 1338 one uses it for “to bid at an auction”.^[13] The early dictionaries know mainly the sense “to add up, amount to” (Cardoso 1569, Pereira 1697) and the pasture sense (Barbosa 1611).^[14][15][16] Feijó in 1734 lists the riding sense first, beside “to rise, grow” and “to matter”.^[17] Morais in 1789 adds the mounting of cannon on their carriages, the setting of a precious stone, the rounding of a cape at sea and the coming in of the tide.^[18]

The modern senses “to assemble, put together”, “to set up (a business)” and “to stage (a play)” are recorded in the dictionaries of the 19th and 20th centuries.^[19][2] In Brazil the reflexive montar-se began as drag slang for putting on one's drag persona and has spread to “to dress up, put on heavy make-up”.^[1] The old sense “to bid at an auction” is still used in Portugal, and “to matter” lives on in the speech of Vila Real.^[2][20]

Timeline

• 13th century – the Cantigas de Santa Maria have montou and montavan “rose, flew up”.^[11][2]
• 1292 – a document of Lamego uses montem for using the common hill land.^[13]
• 1338 – montar “to bid at an auction” in a document.^[13]
• c. 1450 – the Livro das tres vertudes uses the verb.^[21]
• 1569 – Cardoso glosses Montar with the Latin for “to sum up”.^[14]
• 1611 – Barbosa gives the sense “to graze on a hill”.^[16]
• 1734 – Feijó lists “to get on a horse” first.^[17]
• 1789 – Morais has montar a cavallo, montar a peça and montar o cabo.^[18]

Meanings

Verb

1. To get on or mount (a horse or other animal); to ride, also as a sport: Ela monta desde criança.^[2][4][5][1]
2. To get onto or sit astride something (a bicycle, a wall); to put one thing on top of another: montou na bicicleta e saiu.^[2][22][23]
3. To rise, go up; of water or the tide, to come in.^[2][22]
4. To amount to (a sum): a conta montava a mil euros.^[2][22][23]
5. To matter, be of importance; in the phrase tanto monta “it makes no difference”.^[2][22]
6. To assemble or put together (a machine, a puzzle); to set (a precious stone).^[2][4][1]
7. To set up or establish (a business, a house), providing what is needed.^[2][5]
8. To stage (a play), organize (an exhibition); in film and photography, to edit or make a montagem.^[2][22]
9. (Brazil, reflexive, informal) To put on a drag persona; to dress up and make up heavily.^[1][2]
10. (Portugal) To bid at an auction (leilão).^[2]
11. (vulgar) To have sex with, mount.^[2][23]

Word family

• desmontar
• monta
• monta-cargas
• montador
• montaria
• montagem

Related words

• monte
• montanha
• French monter
• Spanish montar

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 l m n o p q Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. montar
3. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. montar
4. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. montar
5. ^ 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. montar
6. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. montar
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. 342
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5668
9. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. monter
10. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ 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. montar
12. ^ 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. montar
13. ^ a b c 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, 151
14. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. montar
15. ^ 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. montar
16. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. montar
17. ^ 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. montar
18. ^ 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, 94
19. ^ 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. montar
20. ^ 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. montar
21. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. montar
22. ^ a b c d e Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 6301
23. ^ 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. montar