sorver

Forms

sorver (first-person singular present sorvo, first-person singular preterite sorvi, past participle sorvido)^[1] The 14th century writes soruer and ssoruer.^[2] Feijó (1734) prescribes sorver and not solver.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin sorbeō (“to swallow, suck up”), written Old Galician-Portuguese sorver in the old language.^[2][4][5][1]

The same Latin verb is Galician sorber, Spanish sorber, Italian sorbire, Catalan sorbir and Romanian sorbi.^[6][7][1] Corominas notes that it lives on in all the western Romance languages except French, Catalan and Occitan.^[8]

De Vaan derives the Latin verb from Proto-Italic *sorfeie-, from an iterative *srobʰ-éye- (“to take sips, slurp”); its cognates include ῥοφέω (rhophéō, “to slurp, gulp”) and šarāp- (“to sip”).^[9][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss and Cunha date the verb to the 13th century, with the sense “to drink by sucking in”.^[2][4]

Semantic evolution

Barbosa (1611) and Bluteau describe drinking a liquid while drawing in the breath, and Barbosa gives sorver pouco a pouco “to sip”.^[10][11] Morais (1813) adds the figurative sense “to carry down to the bottom”, of the sea or the earth swallowing ships and towns.^[12] Later senses are “to breathe in (air, a scent)”, “to soak up” and, figuratively, “to drink in someone's words” and “to devour, destroy”.^[2][13][14] Cunha dates the noun sorvo “sip” to the 17th century and sorvedouro “whirlpool” to 1813.^[4]

Timeline

• 13th century – first records.^[2][4]
• 14th century – the spellings soruer and ssoruer.^[2]
• 1611 – Barbosa lists sorver pouco a pouco.^[10]
• 17th century – first record of the noun sorvo.^[4]
• 1734 – Feijó rejects the form solver.^[3]
• 1813 – Morais records the sense “to swallow up, submerge”; first record of sorvedouro.^[12][4]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To drink by sucking in, often noisily; to sip: sorvia o caldo devagar.^[2][14][1]
2. (transitive) To suck up through a straw; to draw in by suction.^[2][13]
3. (transitive) To breathe in air or a scent; to inhale.^[2][13][1]
4. (transitive) To soak up; to absorb.^[2][14][1]
5. (transitive) To draw down to the bottom; to engulf, submerge.^[2][15]
6. (transitive, figurative) To listen to eagerly; to take in.^[2][13]
7. (transitive, figurative) To destroy or consume; to devour.^[2][14]
8. (reflexive) To sink; to vanish.^[14][15]

Word family

• sorvo
• sorvedouro
• sorvedoiro
• sorvedela
• sorvedura

Related words

• absorver
• adsorver
• ressorver
• Latin sorbeō
• Spanish sorber

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 m Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. sorver
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. sorver
4. ^ a b c d e f Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. sorver
5. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. sorver
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 8094
7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. sorbere
8. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 309
9. ^ 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. sorbeō
10. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. sorver
11. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. sorver
12. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 726
13. ^ a b c d 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. sorver
14. ^ a b c d e Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. sorver
15. ^ a b Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 8638