tornar

Forms

tornar (first-person singular present torno, first-person singular preterite tornei, past participle tornado)^[1] Houaiss records the form tornedes in the 14th century.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin tornō (“to turn on a lathe, round off”), written Old Galician-Portuguese tornar in the oldest texts.^[2][3][1] Cunha explains the sense “to return” from the idea of turning round, as on a lathe, which also runs through the compounds of the same root.^[3] In the Romance languages the verb took the place of the classical vertō (“to turn”) and torqueō (“to twist”).^[4]

The same Latin word is Galician tornar, Spanish tornar, Catalan tornar, Occitan tornar, French tourner, Italian tornare and Romanian turna.^[5][1]

The Latin verb is formed from tornus (“lathe”), which is from Ancient Greek τόρνος (tórnos, “tool for drawing circles; lathe”).^[6][1] Wiktionary traces the Greek word to Proto-Indo-European *terh₁- (“to rub, twist, turn”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

A Latin charter, perhaps of 910, already has et inde quomodo torna per illo comaro “and thence, as it turns along that boundary”, in a description of boundaries.^[7] In the poems of the Cancioneiro da Ajuda the verb means “to go back to where one has been”, “to bring back”, “to change, transform” and “to reply”, and it is construed with an infinitive.^[7] Houaiss dates it to the 13th century.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The cantigas d'amigo construe it with a bare infinitive where the modern language has tornar a + infinitive “to do again”.^[7] Houaiss dates the senses “to give back” and “to turn into” to the 13th century and “to translate” to the 14th; the Crónica Troiana says that Beeyto de santa marta tornou esta estoria en françes “put this history into French”.^[2][7] The cantigas also use it for “to answer”, as modern Portuguese does in narrative (tornou ela “she replied”).^[8][2]

Bluteau (1712) gives “to go back to the place one left”, and tornar em si “to come round”.^[9] In modern Portuguese the commonest sense is “to make, render” and, as tornar-se, “to become”.^[1][10] Regional uses in Portugal include hooping a barrel with the tornadura, diverting water from one field to another and driving cattle away from a place where they do damage.^[2]

Timeline

• 910? – a Latin charter has torna “turns”.^[7]
• 13th century – the Cancioneiro da Ajuda uses the verb for “return”, “transform” and “reply”.^[7]
• 13th century – Houaiss's dates for “give back” and “turn into”.^[2]
• 14th century – the sense “translate”, and the form tornedes.^[2]
• c. 1350 – the Trasladação de S. Nicolau (witness of the 14th century) uses the verb.^[11]
• 1712 – Bluteau lists tornar em si.^[9]
• 1871 – Vieira defines the verb with quotations from João de Barros.^[12]

Meanings

Verb

1. To return, go or come back to where one was: Tornou à aldeia depois da guerra.^[2][10][1]
2. To go back to an earlier state or time.^[2]
3. To bring back, take back.^[2]
4. To happen again, recur.^[2]
5. To give back (restituir).^[2][13][1]
6. To change one's mind.^[2]
7. To make, render;^[2][1] (reflexive) to become, turn into: O tempo tornou-se frio.^[2][1]
8. To take someone's side.^[2]
9. To translate (traduzir).^[2][13]
10. To reply.^[2][13]
11. To come back to a subject.^[2]
12. (tornar a + infinitive) To do again: Tornou a perguntar.^[1][7]
13. (Portugal) To hoop a barrel with the tornadura.^[2]

Word family

• torna
• retornar

Related words

• torno
• tornear
• Latin tornō
• Galician tornar

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o 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 q r s t u Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. tornar
3. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. torna
4. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. tourner
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e f g 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. tornar
8. ^ 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. tornar
9. ^ 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. tornar
10. ^ a b Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. tornar
11. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. tornar
12. ^ 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, 768
13. ^ a b c Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. tornar