perigo

Forms

perigo m (plural perigos)^[1] In the 13th century Old Galician-Portuguese wrote perigoo and perigo, beside periglo and perigro; the 14th century has peligros, perijgioos and periuro, the 15th pirigoo, prigo and prijguoo.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin perīculum (“trial, attempt; risk, danger”), written Old Galician-Portuguese perigoo and Old Galician-Portuguese perigo in the oldest texts, beside Old Galician-Portuguese periglo and Old Galician-Portuguese perigro.^[2][3][4][1] The Latin word first meant “trial, test” and then “the risk run”.^[2][5]

Wiktionary calls it probably a semi-learned word.^[1] Corominas says the same of Spanish peligro, older periglo.^[6] García de Diego derives the Spanish and Portuguese words from the learned form, and Catalan perill from a Vulgar Latin form *periclum.^[7] Nascentes adds, after Nunes, that the form with -goo must be a later one, since the vowel after the stress was not lost as it would have been in a fully popular word.^[8] The other Romance forms are Galician perigo, French péril, Occitan perilh and Italian pericolo.^[9][1]

The Latin noun comes from the root of perītus (“experienced”) and experior (“to try, test”).^[6][10] Wiktionary tentatively traces it to Proto-Italic *per-ei-klom and the PIE root *perh₃- (“to go through, attempt”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Lorenzo's chronology quotes a record of prigoo from 1211.^[4] The Cantigas de Santa Maria have o perigo tal “such danger”, o perigoo das ondas “the danger of the waves” and en perigoo do mar “in peril of the sea”, and one cantiga has both grandes periglos and mui grandes perigros.^[4][11] A satirical cantiga by Gil Perez Conde asks Quantos perígoos i passei “how many perils I went through there”.^[11]

Semantic evolution

Morais (1789) defines the word as the risk of suffering harm, loss or ruin, with estar em perigo de vida “to be in danger of one's life” and tomar sobre si o perigo “to take the risk upon oneself”, that is, to guarantee.^[12] Bluteau (1712–1728) lists many Latin phrases for putting one's life at risk.^[13]

The old Caldas Aulete records a regional sense in Portugal, “miscarriage”, which the modern dictionaries keep, and a Brazilian slang sense, “seductive woman” or “womaniser”.^[14][15][2] Porto Editora also gives a regional sense “lightning” in Portugal.^[16]

Timeline

• 1211 – prigoo, in Lorenzo's chronology.^[4]
• 13th century – perigo, perigoo, periglo and perigro in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[2][4]
• 14th century – peligros and perijgioos.^[2]
• 1513 – perigo in the Livro dos Mártires.^[17]
• 1569 – Cardoso's dictionary heads the word Perigo.^[18]
• 1611 – Barbosa lists Perigosa cousa “dangerous thing”.^[19]
• 1789 – Morais records estar em perigo de vida.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. danger: a situation in which a person, an animal or a thing is threatened.^[2][20][1]
2. Something that causes danger; a threat: O gelo na estrada é um perigo.^[2][20][1]
3. A person who is a danger to others.^[14][21]
4. (Brazil, informal) A seductive woman; a womaniser.^[2][20][22]
5. (law) A situation in which harm may occur.^[2]
6. (Portugal, regional) A miscarriage.^[15][16]

Word family

• perigar
• perigoso
• perigosamente
• perigosidade

Related words

• periculosidade
• Latin periculum
• Galician perigo
• Spanish peligro

Usage notes

Estar em perigo de vida is “to be at risk of dying”.^[16][23] Informally, a perigo means “broke, without money”.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. perigo
3. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. perigo
4. ^ a b c d e f 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. perigo
5. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. perigo
6. ^ a b Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 463
7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. periculum
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. 392
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6414
10. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. péril
11. ^ a b 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. perigoo
12. ^ 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, 188
13. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. perigo
14. ^ 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. perigo
15. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. perigo
16. ^ a b c Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 7090
17. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. perigo
18. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. perigo
19. ^ Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. perigo
20. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. perigo
21. ^ 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. perigo
22. ^ 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. perigo
23. ^ Estraviz, Isaac Alonso, Dicionário Estraviz, https://estraviz.org, p. s.v. perigo