para

Etymology

It continues the medieval Old Galician-Portuguese pera, which is inherited from Latin per (“through”) combined with ad (“to, towards”).^{[2][3][4][5][1]} Houaiss records the spellings with ⟨a⟩ and ⟨e⟩ side by side in the 13th century, and a short Old Galician-Portuguese par in the 14th.^[2] The cantigas also have Old Galician-Portuguese pora.^[6][7] The unstressed /e/ before /r/ became /a/, as in câmara from camera.^[8] Cunha notes that the old form is very frequent in medieval texts and that the present one began to prevail over it only from the middle of the 17th century.^[3] Nascentes says the old form lasted until the 16th century.^[4]

The etymology is debated.^[8][9] Nascentes reports that Adolfo Coelho derived the word from the Latin preposition alone, and that Cortesão rejected the etymon of Nunes, relying on the old form with ⟨o⟩ and on the phrase pro ad (“for, to”) in the Latin of documents from Portugal.^[8] Nascentes himself answers that the phrase with the other preposition is also found in those documents.^[8] Corominas, in his article on Spanish para, follows Hanssen in deriving the Portuguese and Castilian prepositions from that phrase, which appears in documents from Portugal from the late 9th century, while Catalan per a goes back to the phrase of the other preposition.^[9] He adds that the old Castilian par, a continuation of the Latin preposition of the first etymology, helped the change of pora into the present Spanish form.^[9][10]

The Latin preposition goes back to *per-, whose descendants include περί (perí) and the English word for.^[1][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

A Latin text of 1249 already has the Romance form in de pinnas quas duzerint pera comedere “of the pledges they bring in order to eat”.^[8] In Galician-Portuguese a document of 1253–1254 writes aplazelo pera ante uos “to summon him before you”, and the Cantigas de Santa Maria use pera of direction, purpose and benefit: pera o mundo salvar “to save the world”.^[7] The Crónica Troiana has both para and pera in the senses “towards”, “for” and “in order to”.^[12][7]

Semantic evolution

The senses of direction and purpose are both present from the first texts.^[7] The dictionaries from Barbosa (1611) to Bluteau gloss para with Latin ad, in and ut according to the construction.^[13][14] Feijó in 1734 says that some still say pera, but that para is the more usual form, and jokes that pera is the fruit “pear”.^[15] Morais in 1789 notes that para with a place implies a stay there (vai para França), as against a passing visit.^[16]

In Brazil para also takes the place of a and em with places, and is usually said in the reduced forms pra and pa.^[17][1] Corominas notes that Portuguese, like American Spanish, uses para where European Spanish prefers hacia “towards”.^[9] The preposition passed into Ambonese Malay as par.^[1]

Timeline

• 1249 – pera comedere in a Latin text.^[8]
• 1253–1254 – aplazelo pera ante uos in a Galician-Portuguese document.^[7]
• 13th century – the spellings para and pera, and par in the 14th century.^[2]
• 1416 – the Vida de Santo Aleixo Confessor has para.^[18]
• 1611 – Barbosa's dictionary gives para with Latin ad and in.^[13]
• mid-17th century – para begins to prevail over pera.^[3]
• 1734 – Feijó prefers para to pera.^[15]

Meanings

Preposition

1. to, towards; marks the destination or direction of a movement: Amanhã voltamos para Lisboa.^{[2][19][20][1]}
2. for; marks the person or thing something is meant for: Este bolo é para a avó.^{[2][20][21][1]}
3. In order to; marks purpose or aim: Saiu cedo para apanhar o comboio.^{[2][19][21][1]}
4. (with estar and an infinitive) About to: O filme está para acabar.^[2][21][1]
5. Marks a time or deadline: Ficou marcado para sexta-feira.^[20][21]
6. against; marks what a remedy or protection is meant to fight: um xarope para a tosse.^[21][5]
7. In the opinion of: Para mim, ele tem razão.^[20][1]
8. In relation to, considering; also in proportions: É alto para a idade;^[20][21][1] dois para um.^[20][21][1]

Related words

• Latin per
• Spanish para

Usage notes

In speech the preposition is often reduced to pra, and in Brazil also to pa.^[17][1] Fixed combinations include para com “towards, in relation to” and para que “so that”.^[20][1]

Houaiss and Aurélio also record a separate para of chemistry, indicating the 1,4 position of two groups on a benzene ring, compared by Houaiss with the English para, and the DLP a para, a small coin of Turkey and Yugoslavia, which Corriente traces to Persian pare “piece”.^{[2][19][5][22]}

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. para
3. ^ a b c Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. para
4. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. para
5. ^ 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. para
6. ^ 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. pera
7. ^ a b c d e 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. pera
8. ^ a b c d e f Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 379
9. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 388
10. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. para
11. ^ 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. per
12. ^ 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. para
13. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. para
14. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. para
15. ^ a b 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. para
16. ^ 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, 155
17. ^ a b Schlee, Aldyr Garcia (2019), Dicionário da Cultura Pampeana Sul-Rio-Grandense, 2 vols., Pelotas: Fructos do Paiz, p. s.v. para
18. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. para
19. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. para
20. ^ a b c d e f g Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 6881
21. ^ a b c d e f g 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. para
22. ^ Corriente, Federico; Pereira, Christophe; Vicente, Ángeles (2019), Dictionnaire des emprunts ibéro-romans: emprunts à l'arabe et aux langues du monde islamique (Encyclopédie linguistique d'Al-Andalus 3), Berlin: De Gruyter, p. s.v. para