Etymologically

Etymology and origin of the Portuguese word repousar

Confidence
Established
Formation
Inherited
First attested
1400s More words from the 15th century
Inherited from
Latin repauso
Ultimate origin
Ancient Greek παῦσις
Etymology tree
inherited borrowed derived
Latin pausō
French poser
Spanish posar
Italian posare
Portuguese pousar
Latin repausō
French reposer
Italian riposare
Portuguese repousar
Romanian răposa
Spanish reposar
Derivations
From the same root
French juxtaposer ← poser
French postposer ← poser
Romanian poză ← poser
Italian posa ← posare
Latin repausātiō ← repausō
French repos ← reposer
Italian riposo ← riposare
Spanish reposo ← reposar

Pronunciation

  • Brazil: /ʁe.po(w)ˈza(ʁ)/, [he.po(ʊ̯)ˈza(h)][1]
  • São-Paulo: /ʁe.po(w)ˈza(ɾ)/, [he.po(ʊ̯)ˈza(ɾ)][1]
  • Rio-de-Janeiro: /ʁe.po(w)ˈza(ʁ)/, [χe.po(ʊ̯)ˈza(χ)][1]
  • Caipira: /ʁe.po(w)ˈza(ɻ)/, [he.po(ʊ̯)ˈza(ɻ)][1]

Forms

repousar (first-person singular present repouso, first-person singular preterite repousei, past participle repousado)[1] Houaiss records the 15th-century spellings repusará, repouzar and rrepusando.[2] The variant repoisar is listed by Feijó in 1734 and by Silva Bastos, and Wiktionary and Priberam still give it.[3][4][5][1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin repausō (“to rest”).[2][6][7][1] The Latin verb combines re- (“again, back”) and pausō (“to halt, cease, rest”), from pausa (“pause, halt”), from Ancient Greek παῦσις (paûsis, “stopping, ceasing”).[1][8] It is found in Latin inscriptions in the sense “to halt for a while”, and in Medieval Latin it means “to rest”, “to go to sleep” and, of a person, “to refresh, revive”.[9][10]

The same Latin word is Galician repousar, Spanish reposar, Catalan reposar, Occitan repausar, French reposer and Italian riposare.[11][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss and Cunha date the verb to the 15th century;[2][6] Cunha's addenda cite a 15th-century record from the Esopo.[2][6] In the CTA corpus it first appears in the Livro das tres vertudes, a witness from after 1450.[12] The sense is already “to rest, be at peace”; the nouns repouso and repousamento “rest” are of the same century.[13][14][15]

Semantic evolution

Cardoso and Barbosa render repousar by Latin quiesco “I rest”.[16][17] Bluteau records the proverb o que deve, não repousa como quer “a man in debt does not rest as he would like”, and repousar em o Senhor, said in martyrologies of one who dies in grace;[18][19] Morais in 1789 glosses the phrase simply as “to die”.[18][19] The senses “to lie buried”, “to lie fallow”, “to rest on, be founded on” and, of a liquid, “to settle” belong to the modern language.[2][20][5]

Timeline

  • 15th century – first record, with the spellings repouzar and rrepusando.[2][6]
  • 15th century – first record of repouso and of repousamento.[13][14]
  • after 1450 – repousar in the Livro das tres vertudes.[12]
  • 1542 – repousar in a private letter.[21]
  • 1569 – Cardoso's dictionary renders it by Latin quiesco.[16]
  • 1712 – Bluteau records repousar em o Senhor “to die in grace”.[18]
  • 1734 – Feijó lists the variant repoisar.[3]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To rest, be or put at rest; to stop and recover from tiredness: Depois do almoço repousou uma hora.[2][22][20][1]
  2. To give rest or relief to; to soothe, calm: O silêncio da serra repousa a cabeça.[2][22][23]
  3. To sleep: Não repousou nada esta noite.[2][22][20]
  4. Of land, to lie fallow (pousio).[2][22][20]
  5. To lie buried: Aqui repousam os seus restos.[2][24][5]
  6. To rest (the eyes, the gaze) on something; to fix.[2][20][24]
  7. To rest on, be based or founded on: A teoria repousa numa hipótese frágil.[2][24][25]
  8. To be placed or situated (on or in): A quinta repousa no fundo do vale.[2][20][25]
  9. Of a liquid, to settle so that its sediment falls to the bottom.[20][5]

Word family

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. repousar
  3. ^ a b 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. repousar
  4. ^ Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. repousar
  5. ^ a b c d Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. repousar
  6. ^ a b c d Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. repousar
  7. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. repousar
  8. ^ Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. reposar
  9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. repausō
  10. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. repausare
  11. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954)
  12. ^ a b Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. repousar
  13. ^ a b Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. repouso
  14. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. repousamento
  15. ^ 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. repousamento
  16. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. repousar
  17. ^ Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. repousar
  18. ^ a b c Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. repousar
  19. ^ 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, 325
  20. ^ a b c d e f g 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. repousar
  21. ^ 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. repousar
  22. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. repousar
  23. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 8008
  24. ^ a b c 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. repousar
  25. ^ 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. repousar

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Repousar.” Etymologically, 15 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/pt/repousar. Accessed 16 Nov. 2026.

Last edited on . ·