parecer

Forms

parecer (first-person singular present pareço, first-person singular preterite pareci, past participle parecido)^[1] Houaiss records pareçer, parecia and paresc’ in the 13th century, pariçia and parreça in the 14th, and still parescer in 1873.^[2] The cantigas have the present paresco and the subjunctive paresca.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *pārēscō (“to begin to appear”), written Old Galician-Portuguese parecer in the oldest texts.^[2][4][1] Cunha, Nascentes, the DLP and Corominas give the Latin verb as unattested;^{[4][5][6][7][2]} Houaiss treats it as attested Late Latin.^{[4][5][6][7][2]} It is the inchoative of pāreō (“to appear; to obey”).^[2][5] Wiktionary also mentions a Late Latin appārēscō that lost its prefix.^[1]

The same verb is Galician parecer, Spanish parecer, Catalan parèixer and Occitan paréisser.^[1][7] Corominas notes that Catalan and Gallo-Romance kept the simple Latin verb for some time, while Spanish and Portuguese lost it very early.^[7]

De Vaan glosses the Latin verb “to submit, obey”, with pāret (“it appears, seems”), and reconstructs Proto-Italic *pās-ē-; he asks whether it goes back to Proto-Indo-European *peh₂-s- (“to watch, see”), and considers a link with pār (“equal”).^[8]

The noun is the infinitive used as a noun.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the cantigas the verb meant both “to appear, show oneself” and “to have a certain look”: King Dinis writes Com’ousará parecer ante mi “how will she dare to appear before me”, and Juião Bolseiro nom vem a luz nem parec’o dia “neither the light comes nor the day appears”.^[9] Parecer ben meant “to be beautiful”.^[3] The noun was there too, for a person's looks: Bernal de Bonaval longs to see o seu bom parecer “her fair face”.^[9][3]

Semantic evolution

Cunha dates the sense “to resemble” to the 13th century, and Houaiss “to seem to someone” to the 14th.^[4][2] Cunha marks the sense “to appear” as old; today it belongs to aparecer.^[4] The noun moved from the face and appearance to the opinion a person gives: Houaiss dates “opinion” to the 15th century, and Barbosa (1611) glosses Parecer with Latin iudicium and opinio.^[2][10] Morais (1813) gives the noun both as the features of the face and as counsel or a vote, with ser muito do seu parecer “to be set in one's opinion”.^[11]

In modern use a parecer is also a formal expert opinion, in law that of a jurist on a disputed point.^[2][6]

Timeline

• 13th century – the verb and the noun in the cantigas of King Dinis, Guilhade and Bonaval.^[9][2]
• 13th century – the sense “to resemble”.^[4]
• 14th century – the sense “to seem to someone”, and the participle parescente.^[2][4]
• c. 1430 – parecer in the Horto do Esposo.^[12]
• 15th century – the noun “opinion”, and pareceença “likeness”.^[2][4]
• 1569 – Cardoso glosses Parecer with Latin videor.^[13]
• 1611 – Barbosa enters the noun Parecer “judgement, opinion”.^[10]
• 1813 – Morais lists the noun “features of the face” and “counsel”.^[11]
• 1873 – a late spelling parescer.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To look like, resemble;^[2][1] parecer-se com “to take after”: O miúdo parece-se com a avó.^[2][1]
2. To seem, to give the impression of being: Parece mais novo do que é.^[2][14][1]
3. To seem to someone, to strike someone as: O plano pareceu-me bom.^[2][15]
4. (impersonal) To be likely: Parece que vai nevar.^[2][14]

Noun

1. Appearance, looks: uma mulher de bom parecer.^[2][16]
2. An opinion, a way of judging.^[2][15][1]
3. A formal expert or legal opinion, a report given on request.^[2][6][1]

Word family

• parecença
• parecido

Related words

• aparecer
• aparência
• Latin pāreō
• Spanish parecer

Usage notes

Ao que parece means “apparently”, and parecer bem and parecer mal “to look right” and “to look wrong, be unseemly”.^[2][15]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n 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 q r s t u Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. parecer
3. ^ a b c 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. parecer
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. parecer
5. ^ a b c Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. parecer
6. ^ 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. parecer
7. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 400
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ a b c Lopes, Graça Videira; Ferreira, Manuel Pedro et al. (2011–), Cantigas Medievais Galego-Portuguesas [online database], Lisboa: Instituto de Estudos Medievais, FCSH/NOVA, https://cantigas.fcsh.unl.pt, p. s.v. parecer
10. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. parecer
11. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 398
12. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. parecer
13. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. parecer
14. ^ a b Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. parecer
15. ^ a b c Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. parecer
16. ^ 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. parecer