recolher

Forms

recolher (first-person singular present recolho, first-person singular preterite recolhi, past participle recolhido)^[1] The old texts write rrecoller and recoller in the 14th century and rrecolher beside recolher in the 15th.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin recolligō (“to gather up again; to recover”), written Old Galician-Portuguese rrecoller in the 14th century.^{[2][1][4][5][6]} The Latin verb is formed with re- (“again”) on colligō (“to gather, collect”), whose Portuguese outcome is colher.^[2][7] Houaiss analyses the Portuguese verb instead as a prefixed form of the simple verb, and only compares the Latin one.^[3]

The same Latin verb is Galician recoller, Spanish recoger, Asturian recoyer and Catalan recollir.^[8] The palatal /ʎ/, written ⟨lh⟩, comes according to Houaiss from the first person singular of the simple verb, through *colliō to colho, and spread from there to the whole verb.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss's first date, 1101, is a Latin charter with the form recolimus.^[3] The Portuguese verb appears in the 14th century, in the reflexive recolher-se and in recollerlos “to take them in”, and Cunha glosses its first sense as “to shelter, to store away”.^[3][2] In Medieval Latin the verb already meant “to harvest”, “to receive and lodge someone” and, reflexive, “to withdraw”.^[10]

Semantic evolution

Bluteau's dictionary gives recolher first as “to gather in for keeping”, with the harvest as its example, and the nautical phrase recolher as velas “to take in the sails”, used also of an orator coming to the end of his speech.^[11] The reflexive and intransitive senses “to go back home, to withdraw to one's room” and “to take shelter” are in Silva Bastos (1912), beside the medical sense of a skin eruption that disappears from the surface and turns inward.^[12][13] Modern dictionaries add “to withdraw from circulation” (banknotes, a faulty product), “to collect” (taxes, alms, signatures) and “to record, compile” (folk songs, proverbs).^[3][14] The infinitive used as a noun names the hour when soldiers must return to barracks, in toque de recolher “curfew”.^[13]

Timeline

• 1101 – recolimus in a Latin charter.^[3]
• 14th century – rrecoller and the reflexive recolher-se.^[2][3]
• c. 1450 – the Livro das tres vertudes uses the verb (witness after 1450).^[15]
• 1569 – Cardoso's dictionary gives recolher with the Latin recipio.^[16]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau gives the senses “to gather in” and recolher as velas.^[11]
• 1871–1874 – Vieira explains it as re + colher, “to gather again, to take into the house”.^[17]

Meanings

Verb

1. (reflexive) To withdraw to a private place to rest, sleep or be alone;^[3][13] (intransitive) to go back home: Recolhemo-nos cedo, cansados da viagem.^[3][13]
2. (reflexive) To go and live in a secluded place; to retire into a convent or a retreat.^[3][6]
3. To put or take shelter; to bring animals back to the fold: recolher as cabras ao curral.^[3][5]
4. (reflexive) To concentrate on something, to become absorbed in it.^[3][18]
5. To draw in, retract (a hand, wings, claws); (reflexive) to flow back, as waves do.^[3][13]
6. To gather up what is scattered; to pick (flowers, fruit); to harvest.^[3][6][14]
7. To collect money: alms, contributions, taxes, rents.^[3][5]
8. To take back what had been handed out; to recall a product; to withdraw banknotes or coins from circulation.^[3][14]
9. To receive as a reward or result: recolher os frutos do trabalho.^[3][18]
10. To record and compile (songs, tales, proverbs); to fix in the memory.^[3][14]
11. To give hospitality to; to take in (a person in need).^[5][6]
12. (medicine, of a skin eruption) To disappear from the surface while continuing inside the body.^[13][18]

Word family

• recolhimento
• recolha
• recolhido

Related words

• colher
• acolher
• Latin recolligō
• Galician recoller
• Spanish recoger

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. recolher
3. ^ 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. recolher
4. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. recolher
5. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. recolher
6. ^ 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. recolher
7. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. colher
8. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. recolligere
9. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. colher
10. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. recolligere
11. ^ a b Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. recolher
12. ^ Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. recolher
13. ^ a b c d e f Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. recolher
14. ^ a b c d 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. recolher
15. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. recolher
16. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. recolher
17. ^ Vieira, Frei Domingos (1871–1874), Grande Diccionario Portuguez ou Thesouro da lingua portugueza, 5 vols., Porto: Ernesto Chardron e Bartholomeu H. de Moraes, p. 5, 125
18. ^ a b c Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 7846