pavor

Forms

pavor m (plural pavores)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin pavor (“sudden fear, terror”), the source of Old Galician-Portuguese pavor in the oldest texts.^[2][3][1] Nascentes, by contrast, calls it a learned word.^[4]

The same Latin word is Galician pavor, Spanish pavor, Catalan por, Old French paor and French peur; Italian paura has a different suffix.^[5][6][7][8] In Spanish it was common in the oldest period and later lived on mainly as a literary word.^[9]

The Latin noun is formed from paveō (“to be frightened”) with the suffix -or.^[10][1] De Vaan reconstructs a stative verb, Proto-Italic *pawē-, and traces it to *pou-eh₁- (“to fear”), comparing the Celtic words for fear in Old Irish and Welsh.^[11] Wiktionary calls the origin uncertain and mentions the alternative that the verb is a stative of the root of paviō (“to beat, strike”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss and Cunha date the word to the 13th century.^[2][3] The Cantigas de Santa Maria use it often for sudden fear, as in con pavor fugia “fled in fear”, and the troubadours have aver pavor de “to be afraid of” and gran pavor de morte “great fear of death”.^[12]

Semantic evolution

The sense has stayed close to the Latin one: a violent or sudden fear.^[2][12] The Galician-Portuguese poets also used it in the weaker sense of apprehension, aver pavor “to fear that something may happen”.^[12] The dictionaries of the 17th and 18th centuries give it as the equivalent of Latin pavor and consternatio, and Morais defines it as fear joined with fright and sudden alarm.^[13][14][15] The verb apavorar “to terrify” followed in the 17th century, and espavorir and espavorido are first recorded in 1813.^[3] Modern dictionaries add a transferred use for a person, thing or situation that one finds hateful.^[16][17]

Timeline

• 1200s – first records, according to Houaiss and Cunha.^[2][3]
• 1300s – the spelling pauor.^[2]
• 1611 – Barbosa glosses pavor with Latin pavor and lists aver, ou ter pavor.^[13]
• 1600s – first records of apavorar and apavorado.^[3]
• 1755 – Folqman gives ter pavor “to be afraid”.^[18]
• 1789 – Morais defines the word and adds the adjective pavoroso “frightful”.^[15]
• 1813 – first records of espavorir and espavorido.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. Intense fear or sudden fright; terror, dread: Tinha pavor de trovoadas.^[2][1][19]
2. (figurative) A person, thing or situation found extremely unpleasant or hateful.^[16][17]

Word family

• apavorar
• apavorado
• apavoramento
• espavorir
• espavorido
• pavoroso

Related words

• pávido
• impávido
• Latin pavor

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 Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. pavor
3. ^ a b c d e f Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. pavor
4. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. pavor
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6314
6. ^ Estraviz, Isaac Alonso, Dicionário Estraviz, https://estraviz.org, p. s.v. pavor
7. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. peur
8. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 386
9. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 442
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
12. ^ 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. pavor
13. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. pavor
14. ^ Pereira, Bento (1697), Thesouro da lingoa portuguesa, in the 1697 edition of his Prosodia (1st ed. 1647; CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. pavor
15. ^ 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, 172
16. ^ 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. pavor
17. ^ a b Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 6988
18. ^ Folqman, Carlos (1755), Diccionario portuguez, e latino, Lisboa: Régia Officina Silviana (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. pavor
19. ^ Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. pavor