tocar

Forms

tocar (first-person singular present toco, first-person singular preterite toquei, past participle tocado)^[1] Houaiss's first historical form is tocon, of the 13th century;^[2] tocar appears in the 15th.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *toccō, a verb that Houaiss, Cunha and Nascentes take to be built on an imitative syllable ⟨toc⟩, like the sound of knocking.^[3][4][2] Cunha holds that Portuguese no doubt inherited it from Vulgar Latin, and Wiktionary gives a Germanic origin as the alternative.^[4][1]

The same verb is Spanish tocar, Catalan tocar, Occitan tocar, Italian toccare and French toucher.^[3][5] The DCECH finds forms of it from Portugal to Romania and thinks the first use was the striking of bells and other percussion instruments, from which came “to knock at a door”, “to drive cattle”, “to touch” and “to fall to one's lot”.^[6]

Nascentes reports that Adolfo Coelho derived it from Old High German zuchon, an origin that Meyer-Lübke rejected on grounds of form and sense, as he rejected a Vulgar Latin *tudicō, a frequentative of Latin tundō (“to beat”).^[7] García de Diego still thought the frequentative possible, starting from the ringing of bells.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

A cantiga d'escarnho of Estevan da Guarda already has tocar con seu dedo “to touch with his finger”.^[8] Houaiss dates the verb to the 13th century from the slips of Cunha's medieval index, Cunha to the 15th.^[3][4]

Semantic evolution

Houaiss dates the sense “to mention, to touch on a subject” to the 15th century, and the record of 1516 in Lorenzo's chronology, from the Vita Christi, is of that kind: que toquemos outras tres “that we touch on three more”.^[3][8] Cardoso and Barbosa render the verb by Latin tango “to touch”.^[9][10] Morais (1789) has the musical and military senses, tocar cravo “to play the harpsichord”, tocar tambor, tocar a marcha, and tocar uma matéria “to deal with a subject”.^[11]

Other senses grew from the idea of striking or reaching: a ship touching ground, spurring a horse, driving animals and, in Brazil, sending someone away; to fall to someone's share; to concern; and to move someone's feelings.^[3][12] In Brazil tocar-se means “to realise” and tocar also “to go, to head for”, and in Trás-os-Montes and Minho it means to drive cattle.^[3][1][13] It is also used of a telephone that rings.^[3]

Timeline

• 13th century – Houaiss's first date, with the form tocon.^[3]
• c. 1450 – tocar in the Livro das tres vertudes, its first use in the CTA corpus.^[14]
• 15th century – Cunha's first date;^[8] Houaiss dates the sense “to mention a subject” to the same century.^[4][3]
• 1516 – toquemos in the Vita Christi.^[8]
• 1569 – Cardoso's dictionary renders tocar by Latin tango.^[9]
• 1789 – Morais lists tocar cravo, tocar tambor and tocar a marcha.^[11]

Meanings

Verb

1. To touch: to put one's hand or another part of the body on something; to feel: não toques nesse quadro.^[3][15][1]
2. To come into contact with; to brush against.^[3][15]
3. To mention or deal with a subject: evitaram tocar nessa questão.^[3][1]
4. To eat or drink a little of: mal tocou na sopa.^[3]
5. To play a musical instrument or a piece of music: toca guitarra desde criança.^[3][1]
6. To ring or sound (of a bell, a phone, an alarm, a horn): o despertador tocou às seis.^[3][1]
7. To move someone's feelings; to affect.^[3][13]
8. To fall to someone's share; to be someone's turn or duty: tocou-lhe a casa do avô.^[3]
9. To concern: isso não te toca.^[3][12]
10. To drive or spur (animals); (Brazil, informal) to send someone away, to expel.^[3][1]
11. (Brazil) To go, to head (for a place).^[3]
12. (reflexive, Brazil, informal) To realise, to become aware.^[1]

Word family

• tocante
• intocável

Related words

• Spanish tocar
• Italian toccare
• French toucher

Usage notes

Houaiss and Aurélio also record a separate Brazilian noun tocar, of obscure origin, for a disease of cattle caused by a lack of salt in the pasture.^[3][15]

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 Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. tocar
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. tocar
4. ^ a b c d Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. tocar
5. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. *toccare
6. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 520
7. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 497
8. ^ 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. tocar
9. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. tocar
10. ^ Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. tocar
11. ^ 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, 462
12. ^ a b Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. tocar
13. ^ a b Wikcionário (Portuguese Wiktionary), pt.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. tocar
14. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. tocar
15. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. tocar