subornar

Forms

subornar (first-person singular present suborno, first-person singular preterite subornei, past participle subornado)^[1] From the 17th to the 18th century the dictionaries also have sobornar: Pereira (1697) refers subornar to it, and Bluteau and Folqman head the word subornar, ou sobornar.^[2][3][4] A letter of 1651 has the participle sobornado.^[5]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin subōrnō (“to equip, furnish; to prepare in secret, instigate”), a learned word.^[6][7][8][1] The Latin verb is formed from sub- (“under”) and ōrnō (“to equip, adorn”).^[1][9] Its first sense was “to supply, equip”;^[9][6] Houaiss's list of Latin senses runs on to “to prepare in secret”, “to incite” and “to bribe, corrupt”.^[9][6] Nascentes glosses it “to adorn in secret, to provide with money”.^[10]

The REW groups the Portuguese verb with Spanish sobornar “to bribe, to seduce”, under the Latin sense “to instigate”.^[11] Bluteau thought it came from praising someone, “adorning him with praise”, or from adorning in secret.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss's first record is the participle subornado in Damião de Góis, 1566; the infinitive is recorded in 1679.^[6] Cunha dates the verb to the 16th century, but its derivative subornação already to the 15th.^[7]

Semantic evolution

Bluteau defines the verb in its widest sense as “to induce someone secretly to do wrong”, as when a person is persuaded to give his vote to someone or to speak in his favour.^[3] Morais (1789) gives “to corrupt someone's mind to make him act wrongly”, said especially of bribing witnesses.^[12] Vieira adds subornar ofícios “to obtain offices by bribery” and the bribing of soldiers to desert their captain.^[13] The modern dictionaries put first the giving of money or valuables to obtain something illegal.^[6][14]

Timeline

• 1566 – subornado in Damião de Góis.^[6]
• 1594 – the form soborno.^[6]
• 1651 – sobornado in a private letter.^[5]
• 1679 – first record of the infinitive.^[6]
• 1697 – Pereira's Thesouro refers subornar to sobornar.^[2]
• 1789 – Morais defines it as corrupting, especially witnesses.^[12]
• 1813 – first record of subornador.^[7]
• 1844 – first record of insubornável.^[7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To bribe: to give money or other valuables to (someone) to obtain something illegal or against duty; peitar, corromper: O contrabandista tentou subornar o fiscal.^{[6][15][14][1]}
2. To lure (someone) with deceit or false promises into wrongdoing.^[15][14][16]

Word family

• suborno
• subornação
• subornador
• subornável
• insubornável

Related words

• ornar
• Latin subōrnō
• Spanish sobornar

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. subornar
3. ^ a b c Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. subornar
4. ^ Folqman, Carlos (1755), Diccionario portuguez, e latino, Lisboa: Régia Officina Silviana (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. subornar
5. ^ a b CLUL (ed.) (2014), P.S. Post Scriptum: Arquivo Digital de Escrita Quotidiana em Portugal e Espanha na Época Moderna, Lisboa: Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, http://ps.clul.ul.pt, p. s.v. subornar
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. subornar
7. ^ a b c d Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. subornar
8. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. subornar
9. ^ a b c Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. suborno
10. ^ 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
11. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 8387
12. ^ 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, 425
13. ^ 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, 613
14. ^ a b c 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. subornar
15. ^ a b Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. subornar
16. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. subornar