suspirar

Forms

suspirar (first-person singular present suspiro, first-person singular preterite suspirei, past participle suspirado)^[1] The medieval language wrote sospirar as well as suspirar (13th-century sospirando, 14th-century ssospirar).^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin suspīrō (“to sigh”), written Old Galician-Portuguese sospirar and Old Galician-Portuguese suspirar in the oldest texts.^[2][4][1] Nascentes takes the modern form to be the old one remade on the Latin spelling.^[5]

The same Latin verb is Galician suspirar, Spanish suspirar, Catalan sospirar, Occitan sospirar, French soupirer, Italian sospirare and Romanian suspina.^[6][1] In Latin it is formed from sub- and spīrō (“to breathe”).^[7][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantigas de Santa Maria use the verb for sighing in grief, chorando e gemendo / e suspirava muito “weeping and moaning, and sighed much”, and gemend'e sospirando.^[8][3] In the Crónica Troiana it also means simply “to breathe”, beside “to sigh”.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Barbosa (1611) has suspirar por in the sense “to long for, to strive after”, and Bluteau adds suspirar pelas honras and sighing for a loved one.^[9][10] Feijó (1734) still lists suspirar beside sospirar.^[11] Morais records the transitive use, “to lament with sighs”, and the poetic sense of the sea or the wind sighing, with lines of Camões.^[12][13]

In Brazil the verb is also used of the rhea uttering its call.^[2] The noun suspiro, medieval sospiro, is a 13th-century word; its sense “meringue” is recorded from 1881.^[4]

Timeline

• 13th century – sospirando and suspirava in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[2][8]
• 14th century – the spelling suspirar.^[2]
• 1431–1446 – suspirar in the Vida do Infante Josafat.^[14]
• 1569 – Cardoso translates it with Latin suspiro.^[15]
• 1611 – Barbosa records suspirar por “to long for”.^[9]
• 1734 – Feijó lists suspirar and sospirar.^[11]
• 1881 – suspiro “meringue”.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive) To sigh: to breathe in deeply and slowly out of sadness, longing or weariness.^[2][16][1]
2. (transitive) To express with sighs; to say sighing: suspirou o nome da cidade natal.^[2][17]
3. (transitive, or intransitive with por) To long for; to miss: suspira pelos amigos de infância.^[2][18]
4. (transitive, or intransitive with por) To desire ardently; to be in love with.^[2][19]
5. (intransitive, figurative, poetic) To make a soft, plaintive sound; to murmur, as the wind or the waves.^[2][20]
6. (Brazil, intransitive) Of the rhea: to utter its call.^[2]

Word family

• suspiro

Related words

• respirar
• inspirar
• aspirar
• Latin spīrō

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. suspirar
3. ^ a b c 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. sospirar
4. ^ a b c Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. suspirar
5. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. suspirar
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. suspirare
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. suspīrō
8. ^ 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. suspirar
9. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. suspirar
10. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. suspirar
11. ^ 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. suspirar
12. ^ Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 744
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, 642
14. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. suspirar
15. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. suspirar
16. ^ 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. suspirar
17. ^ 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. suspirar
18. ^ Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. suspirar
19. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. suspirar
20. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 8754