padecer

Forms

padecer (first-person singular present padeço, first-person singular preterite padeci, past participle padecido)^[1] Houaiss records the 13th-century forms padeçe, padesco and padesqu' and an old infinitive padescer.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *patescō, an inchoative of patior (“to suffer, endure”), written Old Galician-Portuguese padecer in the oldest texts.^[2][3][4] Nascentes and Aurélio give the suffix as *patiscō.^[5][6] Wiktionary is more cautious, deriving it from some unattested derivative of *patiō, the active form of the deponent.^[1] The Porto Editora dictionary alone takes it from an inchoative of pateō (“to be open”).^[7]

Corominas derives Spanish padecer from Old Spanish padir, which it replaced, and Houaiss reports his view; the suffixed form is shared with Portuguese, while Italian patire and Romanian păți keep the simple verb.^[8][2][9]

De Vaan lists two proposals for the Latin verb: a link with Ancient Greek πῆμα (pêma, “suffering”), or a derivation from Proto-Indo-European *pet- (“to fly, fall”), as “it befalls me”.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The verb is in the cantigas of the 13th century: in the Cantigas de Santa Maria gran coita que eu padesqu' “the great grief I suffer”, padecia / enfermedade mui forte “he suffered a very grave illness” and quanto padeçeu / na cruz “how much he suffered on the cross”.^[11] In a satirical cantiga Pero da Ponte wishes on a lady mal dia padecer “to suffer an evil day”.^[11][12] The sense from the first is “to suffer, undergo (pain, illness, grief)”.^[11]

Semantic evolution

Beside “to suffer”, Houaiss records “to endure (hunger, thirst, want)” and, through “to tolerate”, the sense “to admit, allow”, used above all in the negative: não padecer dúvida “to leave no room for doubt”.^[2][6] Morais in 1789 already gives “to consent, allow, admit”.^[13] An old intransitive sense was “to be executed, to be put to death”.^[2][14] Cunha dates padecimento to the 14th century and padecente to 1614.^[3]

Timeline

• 13th century – padecer, padeçe and padesco in the cantigas.^[11][2]
• 14th century – the noun padecimento.^[3]
• c. 1430 – in the Horto do Esposo (witness 1390–1437).^[15]
• 1569 – Cardoso glosses it with Latin patior.^[16]
• 1614 – padecente.^[3]
• 1789 – Morais adds “to consent, allow”.^[13]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive, intransitive, + de) To suffer physical or moral pain; to suffer from an illness: padecer de asma.^[2][6][1]
2. (transitive) To endure, to bear (hunger, cold, want).^[2][7]
3. (transitive) To admit, allow, tolerate: não padecer dúvida.^[2][6]
4. (intransitive) To be ill; to be a victim.^[17][7]
5. (transitive) To lack, to be without.^[4]
6. (intransitive, obsolete) To be executed.^[2]

Word family

• padecente
• padecimento

Related words

• compadecer
• paciente
• paixão
• Latin patior
• Spanish padecer

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. padecer
3. ^ a b c d Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. padecer
4. ^ a b 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. padecer
5. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. padecer
6. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. padecer
7. ^ a b c Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 6807
8. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 334
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. patire
10. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. patior
11. ^ a b c d 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. padecer
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. padecer
13. ^ 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, 145
14. ^ Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. padecer
15. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. padecer
16. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. padecer
17. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. padecer