participar

Forms

participar (first-person singular present participo, first-person singular preterite participei, past participle participado)^[1] Houaiss records participar and particepar in the 14th century and partecipam and partiçipar in the 15th.^[2] Feijó (1734) enters partecipar beside participar in his spelling dictionary.^[3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin participō (“to share, to take part”), first recorded in the 14th century.^[2][4][1] Nascentes counts it among the learned words.^[4]

The same Latin verb was taken by Spanish participar and French participer, the French word in the 13th century.^[5][6] The Italian form is partecipare.^[1]

The Latin verb is formed on particeps (“sharing, partaker”), itself from pars (“part”) and the stem of capiō (“to take”).^[7][6][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss dates the verb to the 14th century, from Cunha's medieval slips.^[2] In Latin it meant both “to share in” and “to give a share of”, and the second sense led to “to impart, to communicate”.^[7][6]

Semantic evolution

Bluteau (1712–1728) gives “to have a part in something” and “to communicate, to share”, with a quotation from the Monarchia Lusitana.^[8] Morais (1789) adds the sense “to give notice”, with the example participou-me o seu casamento “he informed me of his marriage”.^[9] Morais (1813) quotes the Ordenações Afonsinas for “to have dealings with” the excommunicated.^[10]

Today the verb means both “to inform” and “to take part”.^[2][11] In Portugal it is also used for reporting an offence to the authorities.^[12][13]

Timeline

• 14th century – first records, participar and particepar.^[2]
• 15th century – the variants partecipam and partiçipar.^[2]
• 1569 – Cardoso renders it participo or particeps esse.^[14]
• 1734 – Feijó weighs the spellings participar and partecipar.^[3]
• 1789 – Morais records the sense “to give notice”.^[9]

Meanings

Verb

1. To make known; to inform, announce: Participaram aos vizinhos a mudança de casa.^[2][11]
2. To take part in; to participate: Todos participaram da reunião.^[2][1]
3. To have a share in (profits, benefits).^[2][12]
4. To share in a feeling or thought (grief, joy).^[2][15]
5. To have qualities or a nature in common with something.^[16][12]
6. (Portugal) To report (an offence) to the authorities; to file a complaint.^[12][13]

Related words

• participação
• participante
• partícipe
• particípio
• parte
• Latin participō
• Spanish participar

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. participar
3. ^ 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. participar
4. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. participar
5. ^ Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. participar
6. ^ a b c Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. participer
7. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. participō
8. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. participar
9. ^ 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, 162
10. ^ Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 402
11. ^ a b Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. participar
12. ^ 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. participar
13. ^ a b Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 6933
14. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. participar
15. ^ 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. participar
16. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. participar