recordar

Forms

recordar (first-person singular present recordo, first-person singular preterite recordei, past participle recordado)^[1] A 15th-century text spells the verb rrecordarom with a doubled initial ⟨rr⟩.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin recordor (“to call to mind, remember”), or its active form recordō, which the OLD records beside the deponent and which Houaiss and Porto Editora give as the source.^[2][3][4][1] Nascentes takes it as a learned word, while Wiktionary treats it as inherited.^[5][1]

The same Latin verb is Galician recordar, Spanish recordar, Catalan recordar, French recorder and Italian ricordare.^[6][7][1]

The Latin verb is formed from re- (“back, again”) and cor (“heart; mind”).^[3][1] Cunha explains the phrase de cor “by heart” in the same way: the heart was taken as the seat of knowledge as well as of feeling.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Lorenzo's chronology antedates Machado, who had placed the verb in the 16th century after Morais, with a passage of the Crónica of 1344: se poderia recordar de todalas cousas passadas “could remember all past things”.^[9] The first record is thus the reflexive recordar-se de “to remember”.^[9] Houaiss also dates the verb to the 14th century.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Barbosa in 1611 glosses recordar with the Latin verbs of remembering, and Bluteau gives it as “to bring back to memory”, with recordar a lição “to go over the lesson”, the school sense that Houaiss and Aurélio still list.^{[10][11][2][12]} Morais in 1789 has the transitive verb with lessons, sins and past triumphs as objects.^[13]

The sense “to resemble, call to mind by likeness” is in the original Caldas Aulete and in Silva Bastos (1912).^[14][15] An old sense “to come to oneself, to wake up”, which Houaiss marks as archaic and regional and Priberam as old, matches Spanish, where recordar “to wake” is treated with acordar.^[2][16][17] Corominas notes that Old Spanish already used the verb causatively, “to remind someone of something”, a construction unknown in Latin;^[18] Portuguese has it too.^[18][12]

Timeline

• 14th century – Houaiss's first date for the verb.^[2]
• 1344 – recordar de todalas cousas passadas in the Crónica of 1344.^[9]
• 15th century – the spelling rrecordarom.^[2]
• 1556 – recordamdo in a private letter.^[19]
• 1611 – Barbosa glosses the verb with Latin memini and recordor.^[10]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau gives recordar a lição.^[11]
• 1789 – Morais defines it as bringing back to memory.^[13]
• 1871–1874 – Vieira derives it from Latin recordari.^[20]

Meanings

Verb

1. To remember, bring back to mind; reflexive recordar-se (de), to recall: Ainda recordo a casa onde nasci.^[2][12][1]
2. To remind someone of something: Recordei-lhe o encontro de amanhã.^[12][1]
3. To resemble, call to mind by likeness: O teu sorriso recorda o da tua mãe.^[2][12]
4. To go over (a lesson or school subject) again, to revise.^[2][12][21]
5. (archaic, regional) To come to oneself; to wake up.^[2][16]

Word family

• recordação

Related words

• acordar
• cor
• Latin recordor
• Spanish recordar

Usage notes

Like lembrar, the verb can take the thing remembered as its subject and the person as an indirect object (recorda-me “it comes back to me”), a construction Houaiss and Michaelis record.^[2][22]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. recordar
3. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. recordor
4. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 7858
5. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. recordar
6. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. recordare
7. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 436
8. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. cor
9. ^ 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. recordar
10. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. recordar
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. recordar
12. ^ a b c d e f Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. recordar
13. ^ 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, 299
14. ^ 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. recordar
15. ^ Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. recordar
16. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. recordar
17. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. recordar
18. ^ a b Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 826
19. ^ CLUL (ed.) (2014), P.S. Post Scriptum: Arquivo Digital de Escrita Quotidiana em Portugal e Espanha na Época Moderna, Lisboa: Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, http://ps.clul.ul.pt, p. s.v. recordar
20. ^ 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, 134
21. ^ 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. recordar
22. ^ 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. recordar