soar

Forms

soar (first-person singular present soo, first-person singular preterite soei, past participle soado)^[1] Houaiss records sõa in the 13th century, soar, soãr, sooar and ssoar in the 14th, and a learned-looking sonar in the 15th.^[2] Wiktionary gives the Old Galician-Portuguese infinitive as sõar.^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin sonō (“to sound”), written Old Galician-Portuguese sõar in the oldest texts.^[2][3][1][4] The Latin /n/ between vowels is lost, as in Galician soar, whereas Spanish sonar and Catalan sonar keep it;^[5] García de Diego also gives a variant Galician zoar and Asturian suar.^[6][5] Further cognates are French sonner, Italian suonare and Romanian suna.^[5][7]

De Vaan reconstructs a Proto-Italic iterative *swonaō, from Proto-Indo-European *swonh₂-éye- (“to resound”), beside an older third-conjugation present used by Ennius and Lucretius.^[8] Wiktionary agrees, deriving it from the root Proto-Indo-European *swenh₂- (“to sound”), and compares स्वनति (svanati, “to sound”) and *zvoniti (“to ring”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The medieval chronicle glossed by the DDGM already has both main senses, “to sound” and “to become widely known”: soarõ as nouas “the news spread”, and tãto sonou a sua fama “so far did his fame resound”.^[9]

Semantic evolution

Houaiss dates to the 14th century the sense “to be pronounced”, said of a letter or a sound.^[2] Bluteau (1712–1728) gives it with a quotation from Bento Pereira's spelling book, and lists proverbs with the verb: o bem soa, & o mal voa “good news rings, bad news flies”, and casar, casar, soa bem, & sabe mal “marrying sounds good and tastes bad”.^[10]

Modern dictionaries add the striking of the hours, the transitive senses “to play” (an instrument) and “to praise in public”, and the figurative “to seem, to strike someone as”, as in soar a and soar bem or mal.^{[2][11][12][1]}

Timeline

• 13th century – first record, as sõa.^[2][3]
• 14th century – the spellings soar, soãr and sooar, and the sense “to be pronounced”.^[2]
• c. 1430 – the Horto do Esposo (copied 1390–1437) has the verb.^[13]
• 15th century – the spelling sonar.^[2]
• 1569 – Cardoso translates it with Latin sono.^[14]
• 1611 – Barbosa defines it as “to make a sound”.^[15]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau lists proverbs with soar.^[10]

Meanings

Verb

1. To make or give out a sound; to ring out, resound: Os sinos soaram ao meio-dia.^[2][11][12]
2. Of the hours, to be struck: Já soaram as dez.^[2][11]
3. Of a letter or sound, to be pronounced: Em “hoje” o h não soa.^[2][11]
4. To spread, become known: A notícia soou por toda a aldeia.^[2][12][16]
5. (transitive) To play (an instrument); to draw sounds from.^[2][12]
6. (transitive) To praise in public, to celebrate.^[2][12]
7. (figurative) To seem, to strike someone as: A desculpa soou-me a mentira.^[2][12][1]

Related words

• som
• ressoar
• sonoro
• soante
• Latin sonō
• Galician soar
• Spanish sonar

Usage notes

Soar bem and soar mal mean to be fitting or unfitting, to make a good or a bad impression.^[2]

Morais (1813) and Vieira (1871–1874) also record a separate, obsolete noun soar, the same word as solar “manor of a noble family”.^[17][18]

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 o Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. soar
3. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. som
4. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. soar
5. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 8087
6. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. sonare
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. 474
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ 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. soar
10. ^ 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. soar
11. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. soar
12. ^ a b c d e f Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. soar
13. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. soar
14. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. soar
15. ^ Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. soar
16. ^ 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. soar
17. ^ Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 705
18. ^ 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, 540