preço

Forms

preço m (plural preços)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote preço, prezo, prezio, prezu, preszu and preso;^[2][3] Houaiss also records preco and prez in the 15th century.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin pretium (“price, value; reward”), written Old Galician-Portuguese preço in the oldest texts.^[3][4][1][5] Latin documents of the north-west already have Romance-looking spellings of the noun from the 9th century.^[2] Medieval Portuguese also had Old Galician-Portuguese prez “worth, renown”, which Cunha and the DDGM take from Old Occitan pretz, the Old Occitan outcome of the same Latin noun.^[4][2]

The same Latin word is Galician prezo, Spanish precio, Catalan preu, Italian prezzo and Romanian preț.^[6][7][1] García de Diego and Corominas consider the Spanish word a learned or semi-learned form, beside the old prezo.^[7][8] The Latin noun goes back to *pretjom “exchange value” and is built on *preti (“against”), the adverb behind Sanskrit प्रति (práti) and Ancient Greek προτί (protí).^[9][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Galician-Portuguese charters have the Romance noun from 1255 (por prezo o qual aprougo a nos “for a price that pleased us”), and the spelling preço from 1259, in Montederramo.^[2] In the cantigas it mostly means “renown, reputation”: Fernão Garcia Esgaravunha praises a lady de mui bom preço e de mui bom sem “of very good name and very good sense”, and the Cantigas de Santa Maria say a mother-in-law had mao preço, a bad name.^[10][2]

Semantic evolution

In the medieval language the word meant both “price, money paid” in the charters and “worth, fame, honour” in the poetry, a sense it shared with prez.^[2] In the notarial books of Noia (1385–1499) por preço çerto “for an agreed price” is a fixed formula of sale, and justo preço the fair value of a thing at law.^[2] Morais (1813) adds the prize of a contest, as in levar o preço “to win the prize”.^[11] Houaiss marks the sense “esteem, regard” as old.^[3]

Modern Portuguese uses the word for the money a thing costs and, figuratively, for what one must sacrifice for something: pagar o preço.^[3][12][13]

Timeline

• 835 and 842 – precio and precium in Latin documents from Galicia.^[2]
• 972 – prezio in a Latin charter.^[2]
• 1255 – prezo in a Galician-Portuguese charter.^[2]
• 1259 – first record of the spelling preço, at Montederramo.^[2]
• 13th century – preço “renown” in the cantigas.^[10][3]
• 1569 – Cardoso glosses preço with Latin pretium.^[14]
• 1611 – Barbosa has pór preço ás cousas “to fix the price of things”.^[15]
• 1813 – Morais records levar o preço “to win the prize”.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. price, cost; the amount of money for which a thing is bought or sold: O preço do pão voltou a subir.^[3][12][16]
2. The rate at which one good is exchanged for another.^[3][12]
3. What is paid for a service or for the use of something: o preço do bilhete.^[3]
4. (figurative) The cost in effort or sacrifice of something; penalty, punishment: a fama tem o seu preço.^[3][12][17]
5. (figurative) worth, merit, esteem; reward.^[3][18][16]

Word family

• apreçar
• apreço
• desapreço
• precificar

Related words

• apreciar
• precioso
• prezar
• Latin pretium
• Spanish precio

Usage notes

Common phrases are a qualquer preço “at any cost”, não ter preço “to be priceless”, preço de custo “cost price”, and, in Brazil, a preço de banana “dirt cheap”.^[3][16][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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. preço
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. preço
4. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. preço
5. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. preço
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. pretium
7. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954)
8. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 631
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ 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. preço
11. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 487
12. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. preço
13. ^ 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. preço
14. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. preço
15. ^ Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. preço
16. ^ a b c Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 7412
17. ^ 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. preço
18. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. preço