subverter

Forms

subverter (first-person singular present subverto, first-person singular preterite subverti, past participle subvertido)^[1] The 14th-century participle is subvertudos.^[2] The popular form soverter (14th century soverterei, sovertida, souertuda; 1450 soverteo) was used beside it.^[3][2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin subvertō (“to overturn, overthrow”), recorded from the 14th century.^[2][1] Beside it the old language had Old Galician-Portuguese soverter, which Houaiss treats as the same word;^[3] Nascentes takes it as the archaic form, later remade on the Latin.^[2][3][4] Cunha dates it to 1568.^[5] The French verb subvertir had the same history: it is a remaking (1291) of a 13th-century Old French souvertir.^[6] The Latin verb is also Spanish subvertir, Catalan subvertir, Italian sovvertire and Galician subverter.^[1][7]

In Latin it is formed from sub-, marking movement from below upwards, and vertō (“to turn”), with an older form subvortō.^[6][8] Wiktionary traces the verb to Proto-Italic *wertō and Proto-Indo-European *wert- (“to turn”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first records are of the 14th century, the participle subvertudos and forms of soverter.^[2][3] In the 16th century Gil Vicente writes que Sodoma foy queymada / e Gomorra sovertida "that Sodom was burned and Gomorrah overthrown".^[9]

Semantic evolution

The first sense is physical: to overturn from below, to destroy by earthquake or flood, as in Bluteau's quotation Toda esta terra foy Subvertida, & inundada com as aguas "all this land was overturned and flooded by the waters", from Vasconcelos's Noticias do Brasil.^[10] Morais (1813) adds a ship that sinks, subverter-se o navio no mar, and the moral sense subverter os costumes "to corrupt morals".^[11] The sense "to overturn an established order" leads to the political vocabulary of subversão (1589) and subversivo (1836).^[2][12][13] In Brazil the old soverter survives for "to make vanish" and "to bury under earth".^[3]

Timeline

• 14th century – the participle subvertudos, and soverter in forms such as soverterei and sovertida.^[2][3]
• 1450 – soverteo.^[2]
• 16th century – Gil Vicente writes Gomorra sovertida.^[9]
• 1568 – Cunha's date for soverter.^[5]
• 1589 – first record of subversão.^[12]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau: "to destroy, ruin".^[10]
• 1734 – Feijó prefers subverter, as closer to Latin.^[14]
• 1813 – Morais records the ship that sinks and the corrupting of morals.^[11]
• 1836 – first record of subversivo.^[13]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive, pronominal) To turn upside down; to overturn, destroy or ruin, or to be destroyed.^[2][15][16]
2. (transitive, pronominal) To capsize and sink: o temporal subverteu o barco.^[2][17]
3. (transitive) To drag down with oneself in sinking or falling.^[2][17]
4. (transitive) To bury under earth, rubble, ash or lava.^[2][18]
5. (transitive) To throw into disorder; to disturb, upset.^[2][15]
6. (transitive) To change or destroy something established; to subvert, revolutionise: subverter as regras do jogo.^[2][1][19]
7. (transitive) To pervert, corrupt values or behaviour.^[2][18][1]
8. (pronominal) To vanish, disappear.^[2][18]

Related words

• subversão
• subversivo
• soverter
• verter
• Latin subvertō

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 p Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. subverter
3. ^ a b c d e f Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. soverter
4. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. subverter
5. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. subverter
6. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. subvertir
7. ^ Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. subvertir
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. subuertō
9. ^ a b 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. soverter
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. subverter
11. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 734
12. ^ a b Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. subversão
13. ^ a b Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. subversivo
14. ^ 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. subverter
15. ^ a b Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. subverter
16. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. subverter
17. ^ 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. subverter
18. ^ a b c Aulete, Francisco Júlio Caldas, Dicionário contemporâneo da língua portuguesa (1st ed. 1881), online as Aulete Digital, Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, https://aulete.com.br, p. s.v. subverter
19. ^ 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. subverter