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trazer

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Etymology and origin of the Portuguese word trazer

Confidence
Established
Formation
Inherited
First attested
1200s spelt trager More words from the 13th century
Inherited from
Latin *trago
Ultimate origin
Latin trahō

Pronunciation

  • Brazil: /tɾaˈze(ʁ)/, [tɾaˈze(h)][1]
  • São-Paulo: /tɾaˈze(ɾ)/[1]
  • Rio-de-Janeiro: /tɾaˈze(ʁ)/, [tɾaˈze(χ)][1]
  • Caipira: /tɾaˈze(ɻ)/[1]

Forms

trazer (first-person singular present trago, first-person singular preterite trouxe, past participle trazido)[1] Old Galician-Portuguese had trager, with traga, trage, trax and a 13th-century traer;[2][3][4] trazer is recorded from the 14th century.[2][3][4] Nascentes notes that trager still lives in the Minho.[5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *tragō, a popular remaking of Latin trahō (“to pull, drag”), and was written Old Galician-Portuguese trager in the oldest texts.[2][3][5][1] Wiktionary notes that this form is found in Fredegar in the 7th century.[1] Leite de Vasconcelos, followed by Houaiss and Nascentes, explains the ⟨g⟩ by analogy with verbs whose present in ⟨-co⟩ or ⟨-go⟩ had a perfect in ⟨-xi⟩, such as dīcō and regō: the perfect ⟨trāxī⟩ was given a present ⟨*trago⟩.[2][6] Carolina Michaëlis saw a model in agō, beside its participle āctus.[4] The French verb traire is traced to the same remade form.[7]

Houaiss explains the change from the old form to the modern one as an alveolar pronunciation of the palatal fricative before ⟨e⟩ and ⟨i⟩, probably by dissimilation.[2] Nascentes compares popular ⟨rezisto⟩ for registo.[5] Michaëlis notes that the new infinitive came to rhyme with fazer and prazer.[4] The perfect ⟨trouxe⟩ went through Old Galician-Portuguese trouve, made like ⟨houve⟩ of haver, and trougue, made like ⟨coube⟩ of caber, before the Latin ⟨trāxī⟩ was restored.[2][4] Machado saw Spanish influence in the 13th-century Old Galician-Portuguese traer.[2]

The same Latin verb is Galician traer, Spanish traer, Catalan traure, Italian trarre and Romanian trage; in French the verb now means “to milk”.[1][6]

De Vaan finds the closest cognates of the Latin verb in Celtic, among them Old Irish tráig (“ebb”), and suggests that it may be an Italo-Celtic loanword; a link with Germanic *draganą (“to drag”) is formally impossible unless it is a borrowing too.[8][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss's first date, 1034, is for the perfect trove, taken from Machado's records.[2] In the cantigas trager means “to bring, carry”, but also “to wear”, “to have” and “to keep (someone) in a state”: Assi me trax coitado “so [love] keeps me grieving”, sings King Dinis.[9][10] Trager mal meant “to ill-treat”.[4]

Semantic evolution

The sense “to wear” gave the noun traje “dress”, a derivative of trager, from which trajar “to dress” was formed.[3][11] Bluteau (1712–1728) defines trazer as taking a thing from one place and putting it here.[12] Morais (1789) adds “to cite, allege” and trazer nos olhos alguém “to love someone dearly”.[13] Modern senses include causing or bringing about, wearing and having on oneself.[14][15]

Timeline

  • 1034 – the perfect trove, Houaiss's first date, after Machado.[2]
  • 13th century – trager and traga.[3][2]
  • 14th century – first records of trazer.[2]
  • c. 1430 – the Horto do Esposo (copied 1390–1437) has both trager and trazer.[16][17]
  • 15th century – trajo “dress”.[3]
  • 1569 – Cardoso translates trazer as Latin affero, gero.[18]
  • 1712–1728 – Bluteau's definition, “to take a thing from that place and put it here”.[12]
  • 1789 – Morais records trazer nos olhos alguém.[13]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To bring, carry or convey towards the speaker: Traz-me um copo de água.[2][19][1]
  2. To bring along, come with (someone).[19][15]
  3. To carry, have with one.[14][15]
  4. To wear (clothes, shoes, an ornament).[14][15]
  5. To cause, bring about: A chuva trouxe prejuízos.[14][15]
  6. To bring (news), report.[15][20]
  7. To give as a present.[14][15]
  8. To attract, draw.[14][15]

Word family

  • traje
  • trajar

Usage notes

Trazer is movement towards the speaker, the opposite of levar “to take away”.[14]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. trazer
  3. ^ 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. trazer
  4. ^ a b c d e f 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. trager
  5. ^ a b c Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. trazer
  6. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 503
  7. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. traire
  8. ^ 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. trahō
  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. trager
  10. ^ Universo Cantigas: Glosario da poesía medieval profana galego-portuguesa, A Coruña: Instituto da Lingua e Literatura (ILLA), Universidade da Coruña, https://www.universocantigas.gal, p. s.v. trager
  11. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. trajar
  12. ^ 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. trazer
  13. ^ 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, 487
  14. ^ a b c d e f g Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. trazer
  15. ^ a b c d e f g h Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 9150
  16. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. trager
  17. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. trazer
  18. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. trazer
  19. ^ a b Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. trazer
  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. trazer

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Trazer.” Etymologically, 15 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/pt/trazer. Accessed 16 Nov. 2026.

Last edited on . ·