tingir

Forms

tingir (first-person singular present tinjo, first-person singular preterite tingi, past participle tingido)^[1] The old form was tinger (14th century: tiger, tingerom).^[2][3][4] Feijó (1734) prescribes tingir and not tengir, a form a letter of 1672 still uses.^[5][6]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin tingō (“to wet, dip; to dye”), through the old form Old Galician-Portuguese tinger.^{[2][3][4][1][7]} Corominas notes that the move to the conjugation in ⟨-ir⟩ is shared with Spanish, Galician and Catalan.^[8]

The same Latin verb is Galician tinxir, Spanish teñir, Catalan tenyir, Occitan tenher, French teindre and Italian tingere.^[9][1] The Spanish verb is recorded from the 10th century.^[10]

De Vaan derives the Latin verb from Proto-Italic *teng-e/o- and *teng- (“to make wet”), with the cognates τέγγω (téngō, “to make wet”) and thunkōn (“to immerse”).^[11][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Cantiga 73 of the Cantigas de Santa Maria tells how Holy Mary made white again a chasuble que tingiu o vinno vermello “that the red wine had stained”.^[12]

Semantic evolution

The sense “to dye cloth, to give it another colour by steeping it” is the one the old dictionaries give first.^[13][14] Morais already records the figurative use of colour coming into a face, as in a pallidez da morte o rosto tinge-lhe “the pallor of death colours his face”, and the REW notes the reflexive tingir-se “to blush”.^[14][9] The phrase tingir a espada “to stain one's sword” means to wound or kill.^[15][7]

Timeline

• 13th century – first records, in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[2][3][12]
• 14th century – the forms tinger, tiger and tingerom; first record of tingimento.^[2][3]
• 1510 – Machado's first date for the form tingir.^[12]
• 1569 – Cardoso glosses it with Latin tingo and inficio.^[16]
• 1672 – a private letter writes tengir.^[6]
• 1734 – Feijó prescribes tingir over tengir.^[5]
• 1789 – Morais records the figurative sense.^[14]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To dye; to give something a new colour by steeping it in dye: mandou tingir as cortinas de azul.^{[2][17][18][1]}
2. (transitive) To give a colour to; to tint: o pôr do sol tingia o rio.^[2][17][1]
3. (transitive) To stain; to leave a mark of colour on.^[2][17][1]
4. (transitive and reflexive) To make or become red in the face; to blush.^{[2][17][18][1]}
5. (reflexive) To take on a colour.^[17][18]

Word family

• tingimento
• tingidor
• tingido

Related words

• tinta
• tinto
• tintura
• Latin tingō
• Spanish teñir
• Galician tinxir

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. tingir
3. ^ a b c d Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. tinção
4. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. tingir
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. tingir
6. ^ 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. tingir
7. ^ a b 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. tingir
8. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 466
9. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 8750
10. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. teñir
11. ^ 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. tingō
12. ^ 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. tingir
13. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. tingir
14. ^ a b c 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, 459
15. ^ 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. tingir
16. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. tingir
17. ^ a b c d e Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. tingir
18. ^ a b c Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 8979