perder

Forms

perder (first-person singular present perco, first-person singular preterite perdi, past participle perdido)^[1] Houaiss's earliest record, taken from Machado, is the form perdestes in 1074; the infinitive is of the 13th century, and the subjunctive percades of the 15th.^[2] The old language had the first person perço and the subjunctive perça, perçades.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin perdō (“to destroy, waste, lose”), written Old Galician-Portuguese perder in the oldest texts.^[2][4][1] The Latin verb is a compound of per- (“through, thoroughly”) and dō (“to give”), “to give away completely”.^[5][6][7]

The same Latin word is Galician perder, Spanish perder, Catalan perdre, French perdre, Italian perdere and Romanian pierde.^[8][1]

The old first person Old Galician-Portuguese perço and subjunctive Old Galician-Portuguese perça continue a popular Latin *perdeō, remade like *petiō for petō and *pōneō for pōnō.^[3] The modern forms with /k/, ⟨perco⟩ and ⟨perca⟩, are not their direct outcome: Houaiss, following Williams, puts them down to the influence of the old ⟨venco⟩ (today ⟨venço⟩) of its opposite, vencer.^[2][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Cunha dates the verb to the 13th century.^[4] In the Cancioneiro da Ajuda it means “to be deprived of” something, as in perder o sen “to lose one's mind” and perder o dormir “to lose one's sleep”, and also “to lead to ruin”.^[3] The cantigas d'amor have ir a perder “to go to one's death”.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The Latin verb meant “to destroy, ruin” as well as “to lose”.^[2] The medieval language kept some of that range: “to waste (time)”, “to destroy, harm”, “to condemn”, and in the reflexive “to be ruined, to go astray”.^[9] “To condemn” is the Church Latin sense of the verb.^[10]

Bluteau lists perder tempo “to waste time”, and Morais (1789) adds losing at play, missing an opportunity, perder o caminho “to lose one's way” and perder de vista “to lose sight of”.^[11][12] In Brazil a woman or a female animal that miscarries is said to perder.^[13] In Internet slang the verb means “to laugh a lot”.^[1]

Timeline

• 1074 – Houaiss's earliest date, from Machado, for the form perdestes.^[2]
• 1200s – first records of perder and of the nouns perda and perdição.^[4][2]
• 1350 – perder in the Trasladação de S. Nicolau.^[14]
• 1400s – the subjunctive percades.^[2]
• 1500s – first record of desperdiçar.^[4]
• 1569 – Cardoso renders it with Latin amitto.^[15]
• 1734 – Feijó calls it an irregular verb and gives pérco, pérca.^[16]
• 1789 – Morais records perder o caminho and perder de vista.^[12]

Meanings

Verb

1. To lose; to stop having, to be deprived of: Perdi as chaves do carro.^[2][17][1]
2. To lose (someone) through death: Perdeu o pai muito cedo.^[18][12]
3. To be beaten in, to lose (a game, an election, a war, a lawsuit): A equipa perdeu a final.^[19][1]
4. To miss (an opportunity, a train): Perdemos o último comboio.^[1][12]
5. To waste: perder tempo.^[1][20]
6. (Brazil) To miscarry; of a female animal, to lose its young.^[13][18]
7. (reflexive) To get lost; to go astray, be ruined.^[1][21]
8. (Internet slang) To laugh a lot at something.^[1]

Word family

• perda
• perdedor
• perdidamente

Related words

• perdição
• desperdício
• desperdiçar
• Latin perdō
• Galician perder

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. perder
3. ^ 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. perder
4. ^ a b c d Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. perder
5. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. perdō
6. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. perdre
7. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 488
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ 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. perder
10. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. perdere
11. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. perder
12. ^ a b c d 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, 186
13. ^ a b Instituto da Lingua Galega, Tesouro do léxico patrimonial galego e portugués (TLPGP), Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, https://ilg.usc.gal/tesouro, p. s.v. perder
14. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. perder
15. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. perder
16. ^ 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. perder
17. ^ Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. perder
18. ^ a b 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. perder
19. ^ 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. perder
20. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. perder
21. ^ 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. perder