respirar

Forms

respirar (first-person singular present respiro, first-person singular preterite respirei, past participle respirado)^[1] The oldest texts write rrespirar.^[2][3] Houaiss records rrespirauã “they breathed” in the 14th century and respirar and respirõ in the 15th.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin respīrō (“to breathe out; to recover one's breath”).^[2][3][4][1] The Latin verb is formed from re- (“back, again”) and spīrō (“to breathe, blow”).^[5][1]

The same Latin verb is Galician respirar, Spanish respirar, Catalan respirar, Italian respirare and Romanian respira.^[1] In French, French respirer is counted a borrowing from Latin, dated about 1190.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Lorenzo found the verb in the Galician translation of the General Estoria: todas las cousas que rrespirauã “all the things that breathed” and coydam que a terra rrespira “they think that the earth breathes”, which moved back Machado's date of the 16th century.^[7][2] Another text has pera poder respirar e bafejar “to be able to breathe and exhale”.^[7]

Semantic evolution

Barbosa (1611) glosses it “to take breath”, with Cicero's a metu respirare “to recover from fear”, and Bluteau defines it as drawing in and expelling the air.^[8][9] Morais (1789) adds the senses “to rest, get relief from oppression” and “to fare better”.^[10] The old Caldas Aulete has “to give off a smell”, with lines of Camões, and modern dictionaries also record “to be alive” and “to express, show”.^[11][12][13]

In the dialect of one part of Portugal respirar is to strip the grapes from a bunch.^[14]

Timeline

• 14th century – rrespirauã and rrespira in the General Estoria.^[7][2]
• 15th century – the spellings respirar and respirõ.^[2]
• 1611 – Barbosa glosses it “to take breath”.^[8]
• 1697 – Pereira glosses it spiro, respiro.^[15]
• 1755 – Folqman has sem respirar “without a breath”.^[16]
• 1789 – Morais adds “to rest, get relief”.^[10]
• 1871 – Vieira quotes the Hyssope of António Dinis da Cruz.^[17]

Meanings

Verb

1. To breathe, take air into the lungs and let it out: Respira fundo antes de mergulhar.^[2][12][1]
2. (biology) Of animals, to take in oxygen through lungs, gills or skin and give off carbon dioxide; of plants, to carry out the gas exchange of respiration.^[2][18]
3. To breathe in (air, a smell): Gosto de respirar o cheiro da terra molhada.^[13][12]
4. To be alive.^[12][13]
5. To rest, get relief, catch one's breath: Agora que o exame passou, já posso respirar.^[12][13][19]
6. To give off (a smell); figuratively, to show, exude: A casa respirava calma.^[12][11]

Word family

• respirador
• respiradouro
• respirável
• irrespirável

Related words

• respiração
• respiratório
• inspirar
• expirar
• aspirar
• suspirar
• transpirar
• Latin respiro

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. respirar
3. ^ a b c Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. respiração
4. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. respirar
5. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. respīrō
6. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. respirer
7. ^ 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. respirar
8. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. respirar
9. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. respirar
10. ^ 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, 335
11. ^ a b 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. respirar
12. ^ a b c d e f Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. respirar
13. ^ 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. respirar
14. ^ Instituto da Lingua Galega, Tesouro do léxico patrimonial galego e portugués (TLPGP), Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, https://ilg.usc.gal/tesouro, p. s.v. respirar
15. ^ Pereira, Bento (1697), Thesouro da lingoa portuguesa, in the 1697 edition of his Prosodia (1st ed. 1647; CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. respirar
16. ^ Folqman, Carlos (1755), Diccionario portuguez, e latino, Lisboa: Régia Officina Silviana (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. respirar
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, 252
18. ^ Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. respirar
19. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 8042