querer

Forms

querer (first-person singular present quero, first-person singular preterite quis, past participle querido)^[1] Houaiss records the 13th-century forms quero, querria and quyserõ, and later quis, quizer, quigera and quixesse.^[2] The cantigas d'amor have the preterite quigi.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin quaerō (“to seek, look for, ask”), written Old Galician-Portuguese querer in the oldest texts.^[2][4][5][1] The change from “to seek” to “to want” is explained by the dictionaries simply: one looks for what one wants.^[6] Corominas considers it a very old change, already hinted at in Vulgar Latin and once found in other Romance languages in their medieval stage, but now limited to Castilian and Galician-Portuguese.^[7] In the Iberian Peninsula the verb replaced Latin volō (“to want”).^[3][5]

The same Latin verb is Galician querer and Spanish querer “to want, love”, but Italian chiedere and Romanian cere “to ask”, and Old French querre, French quérir “to fetch”.^[8][6]

The Latin word is uncertain: de Vaan and Nussbaum derive it from *kʷaizō and a root *kʷeh₂- (“to acquire”), the root of Ancient Greek πέπαμαι (pépamai, “to have acquired”).^[9][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Lorenzo's first record is the form quesieri in a Latin charter of 897: aliguno omine... aligo inde quesieri dare in alia parte, “if any man should want to give any of it elsewhere”.^[3] The Portuguese verb is recorded from the 13th century.^[2][4] The Cantigas de Santa Maria open a song with Des oge mais quer eu trobar “From today on I want to make songs”.^[3]

Semantic evolution

In the Cancioneiro da Ajuda the verb already means both “to will, want” and “to love”, but in the second sense it comes with ben (querer ben) or a synonym.^[3] Corominas explains the Spanish sense “to love” as a shortening of querer bien.^[10] The infinitive used as a noun, querer “will, wish”, is in the Cantigas de Santa Maria (todo seu querer) and in Cunha from the 13th century.^[3][4]

Barbosa (1611) renders the verb by Latin volo and querer bem by amo.^[11] Morais (1789) adds the sense “to try to prove, to want something accepted as true”, illustrated with what Epicurus holds about God.^[12] Modern dictionaries add “to need, require” of things, “to set as a price” and, with an infinitive, “to be about to”, of weather and natural events.^[13][14][1]

Timeline

• 897 – quesieri in a Latin charter.^[3]
• 13th century – first records of querer, quero and querria, and of the noun querer.^[2][4]
• 14th century – the preterite forms quizer and qujs.^[2]
• c. 1430 – the Horto do Esposo (witness 1390–1437), the first CTA text with the infinitive.^[15]
• 1611 – Barbosa lists não querer and querer bem.^[11]
• 1789 – Morais lists querer bem a alguém “to wish someone well, love”.^[12]

Meanings

Verb

1. To want, wish or desire something: Ela quer uma bicicleta nova.^[2][1][16]
2. To want to, intend to, with an infinitive.^[16][1]
3. To want something to happen, with que and the subjunctive; to demand or order.^[1][17]
4. (chiefly negative, polite requests) To mind, to be willing: Não quer sentar-se?^[1][13]
5. To be about to, to look likely to: Estava querendo nevar.^[1][14]
6. To love, to feel affection for, often with bem.^[1][17]
7. (of things) To need, require.^[1][17]
8. To ask (a price).^[13]

Noun

1. will, wish; affection.^[1][18]

Word family

• querença
• querido
• querente
• queredor
• benquerer
• malquerer
• desquerer
• querendão
• quer

Related words

• requerer
• Latin quaerō
• Spanish querer

Usage notes

Fixed phrases include querer dizer “to mean”, sem querer “unintentionally”, querer bem “to love” and querer mal “to hate”.^[13][1][19]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. querer
3. ^ a b c d e f g 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. querer
4. ^ a b c d Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. querer
5. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. querer
6. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 427
7. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. querer
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
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. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 717
11. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. querer
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, 276
13. ^ a b c d Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 7657
14. ^ a b Schlee, Aldyr Garcia (2019), Dicionário da Cultura Pampeana Sul-Rio-Grandense, 2 vols., Pelotas: Fructos do Paiz, p. s.v. querer
15. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. querer
16. ^ a b Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. querer
17. ^ a b c Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. querer
18. ^ 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. querer
19. ^ Folqman, Carlos (1755), Diccionario portuguez, e latino, Lisboa: Régia Officina Silviana (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. querer