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pesar

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Etymology and origin of the Portuguese word pesar

Confidence
Established
Formation
Inherited
First attested
1200s More words from the 13th century
Inherited from
Latin penso
Ultimate origin
Latin pendō
Etymology tree
inherited borrowed derived
Latin pendō
Latin pēnsō
Catalan pesar
French peser
Italian pensare
Portuguese pensar
Portuguese pesar
Romanian păsa
Spanish pensar
Spanish pesar
French penser
From the same root
French dépense ← pendō
Italian sospendere ← pendō
Latin appendō ← pendō
Latin compendium ← pendō
Latin compendō ← pendō
Latin dēpendō ← pendō
Latin dispendō ← pendō
Latin expendō ← pendō
Latin impendō ← pendō
Latin pēnsiō ← pendō
Latin perpendō ← pendō
Latin pondō ← pendō
Latin rependō ← pendō
Latin stīpendium ← pendō
Latin suspendō ← pendō
Spanish suspender ← pendō
Latin compēnsō ← pēnsō
Latin dispēnsō ← pēnsō
Latin pēnsitō ← pēnsō
French pesant ← peser
Romanian păs ← păsa
French pensée ← penser
French repenser ← penser

Pronunciation

  • Brazil: /peˈza(ʁ)/, [peˈza(h)][1]
  • São-Paulo: /peˈza(ɾ)/[1]
  • Rio-de-Janeiro: /peˈza(ʁ)/, [peˈza(χ)][1]
  • Caipira: /peˈza(ɻ)/[1]

Forms

pesar (first-person singular present peso, first-person singular preterite pesei, past participle pesado)[1] Houaiss lists the 14th-century spellings peesar, pessar and pezar, and the 13th-century subjunctive pes.[2] Wiktionary keeps pezar as an alternative form.[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin pēnsō (“to weigh; to ponder”), written Old Galician-Portuguese pesar in the 13th century.[2][1][3] The Latin verb is a frequentative of pendō (“to hang; to weigh”), formed on the stem of its supine.[2][4] Nascentes explains it as hanging the pans of a balance to see the weight.[3] pensar “to think” is a doublet from the same Latin verb.[2][1] The DHLF gives the Latin form without its nasal, *pesare.[5]

The same Latin verb is Galician pesar, Spanish pesar, Catalan pesar, French peser and Italian pesare;[6][1] Corominas finds it in every Romance language.[6][1]

The noun, “grief”, is the infinitive used as a noun.[1] Nascentes explains its sense from the sad person's feeling of a weight on the heart.[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the 13th-century cantigas the verb is used impersonally, “to grieve, to displease”: e pes a quen pesar “and let it grieve whom it may”, mal que me pes “however much it grieves me”.[7][8] D. Dinis begins a cantiga Pesar mi fez meu amigo “my friend has grieved me”, with the noun.[9][10] The glossary of the Cancioneiro da Ajuda notes that the verb occurs there only impersonally.[7]

Semantic evolution

Houaiss dates three senses to the 13th century: “to cause grief”, “to have a certain weight” and “to oppress (the spirit)”, and also the noun “sorrow”.[2] Among Houaiss's 14th-century forms is pessar “to find the weight of”.[2] Barbosa's dictionary of 1611 distinguishes “to weigh so much” from “to put on the scales”.[11] Morais in 1789 enters the noun with the senses “repentance” and “displeasure”, and the phrase a pesar “in spite of”.[12]

The figurative senses “to ponder”, “to press upon” and “to weigh on (a decision)” go with the literal ones in the modern dictionaries.[2][13]

Timeline

  • 13th century – first records of the verb, impersonal “to grieve”, and of the noun.[2][7]
  • 14th century – pessar “to weigh, to find the weight of”.[2]
  • 1350 – the Trasladação de S. Nicolau, the oldest CTA text with the verb.[14]
  • 1569 – Cardoso glosses it with Latin expendo and pondero.[15]
  • 1611 – Barbosa separates “to weigh so much” from “to put on the scales”.[11]
  • 1712 – Bluteau defines weighing as comparing a thing with a fixed weight.[16]
  • 1789 – Morais enters the noun, “repentance, displeasure”.[12]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To weigh, to find the weight of;[2][1] (reflexive) to weigh oneself.[2][1]
  2. To weigh in the hand, to heft (sopesar).[2]
  3. To consider carefully, to ponder: pesar bem as razões.[2]
  4. To press down, to bear on.[2][13]
  5. To influence decisively; to weigh with.[2][1]
  6. To grieve, to cause sorrow or regret (to someone): Pesa-me deixar-te.[2][17]
  7. To be a burden, to oppress (the mind).[2][1]
  8. To have a certain weight: A mala pesa vinte quilos.[2][1]
  9. To be heavy; of a meal, to sit heavy on the stomach.[2][1]

Noun

  1. grief, sorrow: Recebi a notícia com tristeza e pesar..[2][1]
  2. regret, remorse.[17][18]

Word family

  • pesado
  • pesagem
  • pesaroso
  • sopesar
  • apesar

Usage notes

Apesar de and em que pese a mean “in spite of”;[2] pese embora is a Portuguese form of the same phrase.[2] Apesar dos pesares means “in spite of everything”.[19]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r 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 v Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. pesar
  3. ^ a b c Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. pesar
  4. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. peser
  6. ^ a b Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 503
  7. ^ 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. pesar
  8. ^ 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. pesar1
  9. ^ 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. pesar
  10. ^ 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. pesar2
  11. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. pesar
  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, 194
  13. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. pesar
  14. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. pesar
  15. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. pesar
  16. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. pesar
  17. ^ 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. pesar
  18. ^ 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. pesar
  19. ^ 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. pesar

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Pesar.” Etymologically, 15 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/pt/pesar. Accessed 16 Nov. 2026.

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