mudar

Forms

mudar (first-person singular present mudo, first-person singular preterite mudei, past participle mudado)^[1] Houaiss records mudo in 1276 and muden and mvdarsse in the 14th century.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin mūtō (“to change; to move”), through the popular language.^[2][3][1][4] mutar is its learned doublet.^[1][5]

The same Latin word is Galician mudar, Spanish mudar, Catalan mudar, Occitan mudar, Italian mutare and Romanian muta; in Old French muer it came to mean “to moult”.^[6][1][7] The REW notes that in Italian and French the verb lost its original sense “to change” to the descendants of cambiō.^[6]

The OLD derives the Latin verb from an unattested noun *moitos, comparing Ancient Greek μοῖτος (moîtos, “favour, reward”), a Sicilian Greek word.^[8] Wiktionary traces it to Proto-Indo-European *meyth₂- (“to exchange”).^[1] Lewis & Short connected it with moveō (“to move”), a derivation the DHLF rejects.^[9][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss's first date is 1262; he cites his source as Portel.^[2] In the cantigas the verb means “to change, alter”: mais non se pod'o coraçon mudar / do meu amigo de min querer ben “but my friend's heart cannot change from loving me”.^[11][12] By the 14th century Houaiss records it both for “to move” and for “to alter”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The Crónica Troiana uses it for “to dislodge, put to flight” and for “to change”, as in muda a paz en guerra “turns peace into war”.^[12] Barbosa in 1611 lists mudar parecer “to change one's mind”.^[13] Bluteau in 1712 gives it an active and a passive sense: to give or to take another being, nature, state, shape or place, as when the wind changes.^[14] Morais in 1789 adds mudar-se “to move to another town, street or house” and the moulting of birds, mudar a ave as pennas.^[15]

Today the reflexive mudar-se is the usual word for moving house, and the verb is used for changing clothes, means of transport and the clocks.^[1][16] The derivative mudança is recorded from the 14th century.^[17]

Timeline

• 1262 – Houaiss's first date for mudar.^[2]
• 1276 – the form mudo.^[2]
• 13th century – mudar in the cantigas, the century to which Cunha dates the first record.^[3][11]
• 14th century – muden “move” and mvdarsse “change”, and the first record of mudança.^[2][17]
• c. 1430 – first in the CTA corpus, in the Horto do Esposo (witness 1390–1437).^[18]
• 1569 – Cardoso renders it by Latin muto.^[19]
• 1611 – Barbosa lists mudar parecer.^[13]
• 1789 – Morais records mudar-se “to move house” and the moulting of birds.^[15]

Meanings

Verb

1. To change, alter; to make or become different: O tempo mudou de repente.^[2][20][1]
2. To move, shift (something) to another place: Mudámos o sofá para a outra parede.^[2][21]
3. To transfer (to another post or place).^[2][21]
4. To change the direction of; to divert: mudar de rumo.^[21][22]
5. To replace one thing with another: mudar a fechadura;^[21][16] mudar de roupa, to change one's clothes.^[21][16]
6. mudar de ideias, mudar de opinião: to change one's mind.^[13][16]
7. mudar-se: to move house, relocate: Mudaram-se para Coimbra.^[1][20]

Word family

• mudança
• mudável
• muda
• mudadiço
• mudador

Related words

• mutar
• Latin mūtō
• Spanish mudar

Usage notes

Houaiss and Michaelis also record a separate masculine noun mudar, a large shrub of India of the genus Calotropis, also called ciúme;^[22] Houaiss calls its origin obscure.^[2][22] The DLE derives the Spanish plant name mudar from English, and the English word from Hindi.^[23]

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 Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. mudar
3. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. mudar
4. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. mudar
5. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. mutar
6. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5785
7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. mutare
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. mūtō
9. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. mūto
10. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. muer
11. ^ 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. mudar
12. ^ a b 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. mudar
13. ^ a b c Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. mudar
14. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. mudar
15. ^ 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, 102
16. ^ 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. mudar
17. ^ a b Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. mudança
18. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. mudar
19. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. mudar
20. ^ 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. mudar
21. ^ a b c d e Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. mudar
22. ^ 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. mudar
23. ^ Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. mudar