morrer

Forms

morrer (first-person singular present morro, first-person singular preterite morri, past participle morrido, short past participle morto)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese also had the infinitive morer, the present moiro “I die” and moira, and a future morrei beside morrerei.^[1][2] Houaiss records more, moira, moreo and moyrades in the 14th century and moreeo, morredo and morriria in the 15th.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *morĕre (“to die”), an active infinitive that spoken Latin used instead of the classical deponent Latin morī; the oldest texts write Old Galician-Portuguese morrer and Old Galician-Portuguese morer.^[3][4][1][5]

Corominas explains that archaic and Vulgar Latin also had a fourth-conjugation form, the source of Spanish morir, Catalan morir, French mourir, Italian morire and Romanian muri; only Sardinian morrere, some Italian dialects and Portuguese go back to the third-conjugation form.^[6][7] The same form is Galician morrer and Asturian morrer, and Corominas finds it in Leonese and in the Old Spanish Libro de Alexandre.^[7][6]

The double ⟨rr⟩ is not the regular outcome of the single Latin /r/.^[8][6] Nascentes takes it from the future: the old form with a single /r/ had a future Old Galician-Portuguese morerei, shortened to Old Galician-Portuguese morrei, from which a new infinitive was drawn and spread through the whole verb.^[9][3] Cornu derived it instead from an old infinitive Old Galician-Portuguese morre, and Corominas also thinks the modern verb probably remakes that archaic form.^[8][6]

The Latin verb continues Proto-Italic *moriōr, from Proto-Indo-European *mr̥yétor, a form of the root *mer- (“to die”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss's first date, 1255, comes from the slips of Cunha's index of medieval Portuguese;^[3][4] Cunha dates the verb to the 13th century.^[3][4] The cantigas use it often, above all in the lover's moiro “I die”, and the Crónica Troiana has deseiaua de morrer mays non podia “he wished to die but could not”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

From the start the verb was used figuratively: in the cantigas morrer por means “to long for”, and morrer d'amor “to die of love”.^[2][10] Morais (1813) records morrer de desejos and morrer de medo as exaggerations, and the sense “to end”.^[11]

Modern Portuguese also says that an engine, a sound or the day dies, and that a road or a river dies where it ends.^[3] In Angola the verb means to fetch a high price on the parallel market.^[5] In Brazil it is used of a female animal that loses its young.^[12] The infinitive is also a noun, o morrer “dying, death”.^[13] The verb lives on in the creoles: móri in Kabuverdianu, muri in Guinea-Bissau Creole and Papiamentu, mureh in Kristang.^[1]

Timeline

• 1255 – Houaiss's first date, from Cunha's index of medieval Portuguese.^[3]
• 1300s – the forms more, moira and moreo.^[3]
• 1400s – the participle morredo.^[3]
• 1416 – morrer in the Vida do Cativo Monge Confesso.^[14]
• 1569 – Cardoso renders it with Latin morior, pereo and obeo.^[15]
• 1734 – Feijó gives the present forms môrro, mórres.^[16]
• 1813 – Morais records morrer de medo.^[11]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive) To die, to stop living (of people, animals and plants).^[3][17][1]
2. To fade, die away; to come slowly to an end: O som foi morrendo ao longe.^[3][18][1]
3. (of an engine or machine) To stop working, to stall: O carro morreu-me no meio da ponte.^[3][18][1]
4. (of a road or river) To end; to flow into.^[3][13]
5. (figurative, with de) To feel something to an extreme degree: morrer de fome, morrer de medo.^[1][11]
6. (with por) To long for, to want intensely.^[5]
7. (figurative, with para) To be dead to someone, to cut all ties with them.^[1]
8. (Angola) To fetch a high price on the parallel market.^[5]

Word family

• morredouro
• imorredouro
• morrediço
• morredor
• morrinha

Related words

• moribundo
• mortal
• morte
• morto
• Latin morior
• Galician morrer
• Spanish morir

Usage notes

Portuguese has many informal phrases for dying, such as bater as botas and esticar as canelas.^[1][17] The verb has two past participles: the regular morrido and the short morto.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. morrer
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. morrer
4. ^ a b c Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. morrer
5. ^ 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. morrer
6. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 149
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 343
9. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. morrer
10. ^ 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. morrer
11. ^ a b c Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 319
12. ^ 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. morrer
13. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. morrer
14. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. morrer
15. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. morrer
16. ^ 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. morrer
17. ^ a b Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. morrer
18. ^ 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. morrer