oferecer

Forms

oferecer (first-person singular present ofereço, first-person singular preterite ofereci, past participle oferecido)^[1] Houaiss records offerer, offerir and offrecer in the 13th century, and oferecer, hooferecer and offerescã in the 14th.^[2] offerecer was the usual spelling until the 20th-century reforms.^[1][3] Vieira still enters the word under it.^[1][3]

Etymology

Houaiss explains it as from Old Galician-Portuguese oferir + -ecer, the older verb that the new form replaced.^[2][1] The old verb, written offerer and offerir in the 13th century, is from Medieval Latin offeriō, a remaking in the fourth conjugation of Latin offerō (“to bring before, present, offer”).^[2][1] Cunha, Nascentes, Aurélio and the DLP derive the Portuguese verb instead from Vulgar Latin *offerescō, an inchoative of the Latin verb.^[4][5][6][7] Nascentes adds that it supplanted the archaic verb without the suffix, whose forms appear in the old language.^[4][5][6][7]

Spanish shows the same replacement: Spanish ofrecer is recorded about 1140, and before it Old Spanish ofrir.^[8] The verb without the suffix lives on in Catalan oferir, French offrir and Italian offrire, and the inchoative form is also Galician ofrecer.^[1][9]

The Latin verb is formed from ob- (“towards”) and ferō (“to carry”).^[10][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss dates the verb to the 13th century from Cunha's index of medieval Portuguese, and Cunha gives the same century, in the senses “give, present, propose”.^[2][4] A satirical cantiga of Airas Perez Vuitoron has both the new and the old verb: Ofereceu Martin Díaz aa cruz “Martin Díaz offered to the cross”, and in the same poem Ben m'ést[e], porque oferi Monsanto “it is well for me, since I offered Monsanto”.^[11][12]

Semantic evolution

The religious senses, offering a prayer or a mass and offering a sacrifice, stand beside the plain “give as a present” in Houaiss's list, and in the Ordenações Afonsinas Ananias and Sapphira oferecerão to Saint Peter the price of what they had sold.^[2][3] In Barroso, in the north of Portugal, the verb also means to have responses prayed for someone's soul.^[13]

From “present to someone” came the uses “put at someone's disposal”, “propose a price or an exchange”, “dedicate a work”, “provide”, and the reflexive “volunteer” and “present itself”.^[2][14][15] Of the words Cunha lists with it, oferecimento is recorded in the 15th century, while oferenda, oferta and ofertar are older, from the 13th.^[4]

Timeline

• 1200s – first records, as offerer, offerir and offrecer.^[2]
• 1200s – Airas Perez Vuitoron writes ofereceu and oferi in one cantiga.^[11][12]
• 1300s – the spelling oferecer.^[2]
• 1400s – offerecimento, the noun of the act.^[4]
• 1541 – ofereçe in a private letter.^[16]
• 1871–1874 – Vieira enters the verb under offerecer.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. To give as a present: Ofereci-lhe um ramo de rosas.^[2][17]
2. To put at someone's disposal, or (reflexive) to volunteer: ofereceu-se para levar as malas.^[2][17]
3. To propose something in exchange; to bid (a price) or offer (a reward).^[2][14]
4. (religion) To offer up a prayer or a mass; to present as a sacrifice.^[2][7]
5. To dedicate a work to someone.^[2][14]
6. To provide, afford: A cidade oferece bons transportes.^[2][17]
7. To present to the eye or the mind; to show, display.^[2][6]
8. (reflexive) To present itself, occur: an opportunity or an idea that comes up.^[2][15]

Word family

• oferecimento

Related words

• oferenda
• oferta
• ofertar
• ofertório
• oferente
• Latin offerō
• Spanish ofrecer

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 Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. oferecer
3. ^ a b c d Vieira, Frei Domingos (1871–1874), Grande Diccionario Portuguez ou Thesouro da lingua portugueza, 5 vols., Porto: Ernesto Chardron e Bartholomeu H. de Moraes, p. 4, 537
4. ^ a b c d e Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. oferecer
5. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. oferecer
6. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. oferecer
7. ^ 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. oferecer
8. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. ofrecer
9. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. offrir
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ 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. oferecer
12. ^ 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. oferir
13. ^ 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. oferecer
14. ^ a b c Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. oferecer
15. ^ a b Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 6642
16. ^ CLUL (ed.) (2014), P.S. Post Scriptum: Arquivo Digital de Escrita Quotidiana em Portugal e Espanha na Época Moderna, Lisboa: Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, http://ps.clul.ul.pt, p. s.v. oferecer
17. ^ a b c 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. oferecer