pousar

Forms

pousar (first-person singular present pouso, first-person singular preterite pousei, past participle pousado)^[1] The variant poisar is recorded from 1836 and is still listed as a synonym.^[2][3][1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin pausō (“to cease, stop; to rest”), written Old Galician-Portuguese pousar in the oldest texts.^[2][1][4] Houaiss calls the source Late Latin; in Medieval Latin it also meant “to stay overnight” and, transitively, “to set down”.^[2][5] The Latin verb is formed from pausa (“pause”), which goes back to Ancient Greek παῦσις (paûsis).^[1][6]

The same Latin word is Galician pousar, Spanish posar, Catalan posar, Italian posare and French poser.^[7][1] Portuguese also has pausar, a later learned word from the same Latin verb, and posar “to pose”, which Wiktionary lists as a doublet.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss's earliest date, 1185, comes from Machado's records;^[8] Portuguese texts have the verb from the 13th century.^[2][9] In the Cantigas de Santa Maria it means “to stay, lodge” (the Virgin, tired, foy pousar / no portal at Bethlehem; pilgrims pousaron en ũu burgo), “to set down” and “to come to rest”, as in the miracle of the candle that settled on a minstrel's viol (pousou-lle na viola).^[10] The cantigas of mockery and of friends use it for “to sit down” and “to rest”.^[10][8]

Semantic evolution

The medieval verb meant above all “to lodge, spend the night”: Houaiss dates that sense to the 13th century and “to reside” to the 14th.^[2] Cardoso and Pereira translate it by Latin diversor “to lodge”.^[11][12] Morais adds a bird that pousa, settles on something, and an animal that sits down on its hind legs.^[13] The DLP now marks “to lodge” and “to reside” as disused, but in Brazil pousar still means “to spend the night”, and Wiktionary notes that in Rio Grande do Sul this sense may owe something to Spanish posar.^[14][15][1]

From the bird that settles comes the modern sense “to land”, said of aircraft and of spacecraft on another planet.^[2][16] The transitive sense “to put down, lay” and the figurative pousar os olhos “to rest one's eyes on” are the commonest uses today.^[2][16]

Timeline

• 1185 – Houaiss's earliest date, after Machado.^[2]
• 13th century – first records in Portuguese, with posou “set down”.^[2][9]
• 13th century – pousada “lodging” and apousentar are also recorded.^[4]
• 14th century – pousar “to reside”.^[2]
• 1513 – pousar in the Livro dos Mártires.^[17]
• 1569 – Cardoso's dictionary translates it by Latin diversor.^[11]
• 1734 – Feijó lists pousar and poisar.^[18]
• 1836 – the variant poisar “to lodge”.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To put down, lay (something) somewhere: Pousou o livro em cima da cadeira.^[2][19][1]
2. (transitive, figurative) To rest, fix (one's eyes or gaze) on: pousar os olhos em alguém.^[2][16]
3. (intransitive) Of a bird, aircraft or other flying thing, to alight, land: A gaivota pousou no mastro.^[2][14][1]
4. (intransitive) To land on the surface of another planet or a moon.^[2][16]
5. (intransitive) To stay the night, lodge;^[15][1] (Brazil) to sleep over.^[2][15][1]
6. (intransitive, dated) To live, reside.^[2][14]
7. (intransitive) To rest, be still; to stop for a rest.^[2][14]
8. (intransitive) To rest on, be placed on: O telhado pousa sobre vigas de madeira.^[19][20]
9. (tanning) To smooth the flesh side of hides.^[3][20]

Word family

• pouso
• pousada
• pousadeiro
• pousio
• aposentar
• repousar

Related words

• pausa
• pausar
• posar
• Galician pousar

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 i j k l m n o p q r Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. pousar
3. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. pousar
4. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. poupar
5. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. pausare
6. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. posar
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6308
8. ^ a b 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. pousar
9. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. pousar
10. ^ 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. pousar
11. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. pousar
12. ^ 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. pousar
13. ^ Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 481
14. ^ 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. pousar
15. ^ a b c 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. pousar
16. ^ a b c d 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. pousar
17. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. pousar
18. ^ 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. pousar
19. ^ a b Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. pousar
20. ^ a b 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. pousar