tolher

Forms

tolher (first-person singular present tolho, first-person singular preterite tolhi, past participle tolhido)^[1] Old forms include toller and the 13th-century tolessemos.^[2][3] Houaiss records tolhe and tollera in the 14th century.^[3] Wiktionary gives tolir as an alternative form.^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin tollō (“to lift, raise; to take away, remove”), written Old Galician-Portuguese toller in the oldest texts.^[3][2][4][1] DELPo has it come through Old Spanish toller.^[5]

The same Latin word is Galician toller, Spanish tullir “to cripple”, Asturian toyer, Catalan tolir, Old Occitan tolre, Old French toldre and Italian togliere.^[4][6][1] Leite de Vasconcelos, as Nascentes reports, explained the palatal ⟨lh⟩ as spread through the whole verb from the first person ⟨tolho⟩ and the subjunctive ⟨tolha⟩, which would come from Vulgar Latin *tolleō, with the Latin verb moved to the conjugation with long e.^[4]

The Latin verb goes back to a nasal present Proto-Indo-European *telh₂- (“to lift, bear”), related to tolerō (“to bear, endure”) and to tulī (“I carried”).^[7][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Lorenzo's chronology cites a Latin charter of 1112 with the Romance verb: et si... uos illa tolerdes a nos sine nostra culpa “and if you take it away from us without fault of ours”.^[8] Houaiss and Cunha date the Portuguese verb to the 13th century, meaning “to take away, rob” and “to prevent”.^[3][2]

Semantic evolution

In the cantigas tolher is the opposite of “give”: it means “take away, deprive of” (tolher o dormir “to rob of sleep”), and also “prevent, hinder” and “paralyse”.^[8][9] The cantigas d'amigo have tolher morte (a alguém), “to save someone from death”.^[8] The sense “take away” has faded: Cardoso (1569) glosses the verb with Latin prohibeo, and Bluteau (1712–1728) with vetare and impedire.^[10][11]

Morais (1789) records tolher-se de membros, to lose the use of one's limbs through illness, and in 1813 an old legal sense from the Ordenações Afonsinas, tolher a citação, to block a summons by pleadings.^[12][13] The participle tolhido “crippled” and tolhimento are both old: Cunha dates them to the 13th century.^[2]

Timeline

• 1112 – a Latin charter has the Romance form tolerdes.^[8]
• 13th century – first record, toller, tolessemos;^[2][3] tolhido and tolhimento are also recorded.^[2][3]
• c. 1430 – the Horto do Esposo (copied 1390–1437) has tolher.^[14]
• 1569 – Cardoso glosses it with prohibeo and interdico.^[10]
• 1789 – Morais records tolher-se de membros.^[12]
• 1813 – Morais adds the old legal tolher a citação.^[13]

Meanings

Verb

1. To hamper, hinder, get in the way of: O casaco pesado tolhia-lhe os gestos.^[3][15][1]
2. To put obstacles in the way of; to obstruct (obstar): As obras tolhiam o trânsito.^[3][16]
3. To prohibit, forbid.^[3][17][1]
4. To keep from showing itself, to check (coibir): O medo tolheu-lhe a fala.^[3][18]
5. To deprive (someone) of something: tolher a palavra a alguém.^[3][16]
6. To paralyse (paralisar);^[3][15][1] (reflexive) to become paralysed: A artrose tolheu-lhe os joelhos.^[3][15][1]
7. (reflexive) To stand stock-still: tolher-se de susto.^[3][19]
8. (law, historical) To block a summons with pleadings.^[20][13]

Word family

• tolhido
• tolhimento

Related words

• tolerar
• Latin tollō
• Galician toller
• Spanish tullir

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 c d e f Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. tolher
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. tolher
4. ^ a b c 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
5. ^ NEHiLP – Núcleo de Apoio à Pesquisa em Etimologia e História da Língua Portuguesa, Universidade de São Paulo, DELPo: Dicionário Etimológico da Língua Portuguesa (online database), p. s.v. tolher
6. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. tollere
7. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
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. tolher
9. ^ Lopes, Graça Videira; Ferreira, Manuel Pedro et al. (2011–), Cantigas Medievais Galego-Portuguesas [online database], Lisboa: Instituto de Estudos Medievais, FCSH/NOVA, https://cantigas.fcsh.unl.pt, p. s.v. tolher
10. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. tolher
11. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. tolher
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, 464
13. ^ a b c Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 781
14. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. tolher
15. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. tolher
16. ^ 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. tolher
17. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. tolher
18. ^ 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. tolher
19. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 9019
20. ^ 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. tolher