soluçar

Forms

soluçar (first-person singular present soluço, first-person singular preterite solucei, past participle soluçado)^[1] The variant saluçar is recorded from the 13th century and is now old-fashioned;^[2] Feijó (1734) prescribes soluçar and not saluçar.^[3][4][2]

Etymology

Houaiss, the DLP and the Porto Editora dictionary derive it from Portuguese soluço + -ar, from the noun “sob, hiccup”.^[5][6][7] Nascentes and Aurélio take it straight from Vulgar Latin *suggluttiō, an alteration of classical singultō (“to gasp, sob”) by popular association with gluttiō (“to swallow”);^[1] Aurélio allows both explanations, and Wiktionary gives both and names an old form Old Galician-Portuguese solluçar.^[8][9][1]

The noun comes from the Vulgar Latin suggluttium, recorded in glosses, an alteration of classical singultus (“sobbing, hiccup”) under the influence of the same verb “to swallow”.^[10][1] The related verbs are Galician saloucar, Spanish sollozar and Italian singhiozzare;^[1][11] the Spanish verb is recorded from about 1400.^[1][11]

De Vaan reconstructs the Latin noun as Proto-Italic *sengʷ-ol-to-, and notes that it cannot be the participle of a verb under the normal rules of syncope;^[12][1] Wiktionary calls its origin unknown.^[12][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss's first record of the form soluçar is from João de Barros in 1553.^[5] Bluteau quotes Barros's Décadas for a nautical sense: a ship começou a soluçar, pitching so that it broke two cables.^[13]

Semantic evolution

Pereira (1697) and Bluteau gloss the verb with Latin singultio, “to give hiccups or sobs”.^[14][13] Morais explains the nautical sense as the motion of a ship that raises and plunges bow and stern by turns.^[15] From “to sob” the verb passed to figurative uses: the sea, the wind or a guitar “sobbing”, a flame that sinks and flares up, the call of certain birds.^[5][9][16] The DLP also records a sense “to stop and start again; to run badly”, said of a machine.^[6]

Timeline

• 13th century – the variant saluçar, in the form saluçadas.^[3]
• 14th century – first records of the noun soluço.^[10]
• 1553 – first record of soluçar, in João de Barros.^[5]
• 1563 – the noun soluço is used of a ship's pitching.^[10]
• 1697 – Pereira's Thesouro glosses it singultio.^[14]
• 1734 – Feijó rejects the spelling saluçar.^[2]
• 1789 – Morais describes the nautical sense.^[15]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive) To have the hiccups: depois do jantar o menino não parava de soluçar.^[5][6][1]
2. (intransitive) To sob; to weep with sobs.^[5][6][1]
3. (transitive) To say or express something between sobs: soluçou um adeus à irmã.^[9][6][7]
4. (figurative) To make a sound like sobbing; of the sea, to roar or heave; of the wind or an instrument, to moan.^[5][9][7]
5. Of a flame or light, to sink and flare up by turns.^[5]
6. Of a machine, to stop and start again; to run unevenly.^[6]

Related words

• soluço
• singulto
• Latin singultus
• Spanish sollozar
• Galician saloucar

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c 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. soluçar
3. ^ a b Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. saluçar
4. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. soluçar
5. ^ 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. soluçar
6. ^ a b c d e f 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. soluçar
7. ^ a b c Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 8610
8. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. soluçar
9. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. soluçar
10. ^ a b c Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. soluço
11. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. sollozo
12. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. singultus
13. ^ 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. soluçar
14. ^ a b 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. soluçar
15. ^ 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, 416
16. ^ 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. soluçar