subir

Forms

subir (first-person singular present subo, third-person singular present sobe, first-person singular preterite subi, past participle subido)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese mostly wrote sobir (sobyu, sobio, sobem), beside subir.^[2][3][4] Feijó in 1734 still had to insist on subir, not sobir.^[5] A dialect form assubir is recorded in Portugal.^[6]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin subeō (“to go under; to come up from below”), written Old Galician-Portuguese sobir and subir in the oldest texts.^[2][4][1] Houaiss glosses the Latin verb as “to get or come under something, to approach a high place from below”.^[2] It is a compound of sub- (“under”) and eō (“to go”).^[1][7] Nascentes stresses that it is a popular, inherited word even though the /b/ between vowels was kept.^[8][9]

The same word is Galician subir, Spanish subir, Asturian xubir, Mirandese chubir and Romanian sui.^[10][1] Corominas notes that Old Spanish also wavered between subir and sobir, and that the Castilian sense is already found in a text probably written in Spain early in the 6th century.^[11][12] French subir and Italian subire mean “to undergo”, and the French verb is a learned borrowing of 1481.^[9][13]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantigas de Santa Maria use it intransitively, eu sobirei ao ceo “I shall go up to heaven” and en un outeiro sobiu “he climbed a hill”, and transitively, en un eirado o sobiu “took him up onto a terrace”.^[3] Houaiss dates the form sobyu to the 13th century.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In the Crónica Troiana the verb also means “to mount a horse”, and the Crónica Geral already says of food that it sobiã cada dia en preço, “went up in price every day”.^[3] Bluteau in 1712–1728 defines it as passing to a higher place than one was in, with phrases such as subir ao púlpito.^[14] Folqman in 1755 has subir o preço.^[15] Morais in 1789 adds that wine sobe à cabeça, and lists rising to honours, ascending the throne and raising one's style.^[16]

Modern senses include rising in a career or a ranking, boarding a vehicle, and, in computing, uploading a file.^[2][1] Macanese has subí.^[1]

Timeline

• 13th century – sobir and sobyu in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[3][2]
• 13th century – first record of subida.^[4]
• 14th century – subir beside sobio and ssobem.^[2]
• c. 1430 – both subir and sobir in the Horto do Esposo (witness 1390–1437).^[17][18]
• 1569 – Cardoso glosses it with Latin ascendo.^[19]
• 1734 – Feijó prescribes subir, not sobir.^[5]
• 1789 – Morais records subir ao trono and o vinho sobe à cabeça.^[16]

Meanings

Verb

1. To go up, to ascend: to move to a higher place; to go up a slope or stairs: Subiu a ladeira devagar.^[2][20][1]
2. To climb: to raise oneself by holding on with hands and feet; to scale a height.^[2][21][1]
3. Of plants or liquids, to spread or rise upwards.^[2]
4. To raise, lift or carry something to a higher place.^[2][21]
5. To rise into the air; of an aircraft, to take off.^[2][20]
6. To go up a river against the current.^[2]
7. (figurative) To rise in rank or social position; to be promoted: subir na vida.^[2][20]
8. To increase in level, volume or height; of prices, to go up; to raise prices.^[2][20]
9. Of the voice, to pass from low to high.^[2][20]
10. Of the Sun or Moon, to rise.^[2][20]
11. To mount a horse; to get into a vehicle.^[2][22]
12. (computing) To upload.^[1]

Word family

• subida
• subido

Related words

• Latin subeō
• Galician subir

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. subir
3. ^ a b c d 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. sobir
4. ^ a b c Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. subir
5. ^ 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. subir
6. ^ 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. subir
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. subeō
8. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. subir
9. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 479
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 8364
11. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 322
12. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. subir
13. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. subir
14. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. subir
15. ^ Folqman, Carlos (1755), Diccionario portuguez, e latino, Lisboa: Régia Officina Silviana (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. subir
16. ^ 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, 424
17. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. subir
18. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. sobir
19. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. subir
20. ^ a b c d e f Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. subir
21. ^ 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. subir
22. ^ 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. subir