navegar

Forms

navegar (first-person singular present navego, first-person singular preterite naveguei, past participle navegado)^[1] Medieval texts write nauigar and nauegar.^[2][3] The 15th century has nauegãdo, naueguam and navegarom, and 1554 the variant nevegar.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin nāvigō (“to sail”), a semi-learned word in Nascentes's view.^[2][3][4][1] The Latin verb is formed from nāvis (“ship”) and the root of agō (“to drive”).^[2][5]

The same Latin verb is Galician navegar, Spanish navegar, Catalan navegar, Italian navigare and French nager, which in French came to mean “to swim”.^[6][7][8] The Latin noun goes back to *naus and Proto-Indo-European *néh₂us (“ship”), the source also of Ancient Greek ναῦς (naûs) and Sanskrit नौ (nau).^[1][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Cunha's earliest record is nauigar in the Horto do Esposo, which he puts in the 14th century.^[3] Lorenzo's chronology quotes a document of 1405 saying that some of the king's ships were lost at sea em nauegando “while sailing”.^[10] The sense was that of the Latin verb, to travel by ship.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Bluteau (1712–1728) glosses the verb as making a voyage by sea and notes that it takes the sea as a direct object, as navegar o mar;^[11][12] Morais (1813) adds the sense “to ship goods by sea” and “to steer a ship”.^[11][12] The verb then spread to air and space travel in aircraft and spacecraft.^[2][13] In computing it means moving from one page to another through links on the internet.^[2][14][15]

Dialects of Portugal also use it for “to fly” and “to run fast”.^[16]

Timeline

• 14th century – nauigar in the Horto do Esposo.^[3]
• 1405 – em nauegando in a document.^[10]
• 1554 – the variant nevegar.^[2]
• 1611 – Barbosa lists navegar with navegação and navegante.^[17]
• 1813 – Morais adds the senses “to ship by sea” and “to steer a ship”.^[12]

Meanings

Verb

1. To sail or travel by ship, aircraft or spacecraft; to steer such a vessel between two points.^[2][13]
2. To cross a sea or space by ship or aircraft.^[2][18]
3. To carry goods or people by sea or air.^[13][15]
4. (computing) To browse the internet, following links from page to page.^[2][15][1]

Word family

• navegação
• navegador
• navegante
• navegável
• inavegável

Related words

• nave
• navio
• naval
• Latin nāvis
• Spanish navegar

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. navegar
3. ^ a b c d Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. navegar
4. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. navegar
5. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. nāuigō
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. navigare
8. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. nager
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ 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. navegar
11. ^ 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. navegar
12. ^ a b c Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 337
13. ^ 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. navegar
14. ^ 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. navegar
15. ^ a b c Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 6448
16. ^ 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. navegar
17. ^ Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. navegar
18. ^ Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. navegar