troar

Forms

troar (first-person singular present troo, first-person singular preterite troei, past participle troado)^[1] Cunha records the older form tronar in the 14th century.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin tonō (“to thunder”) with an inserted /r/, recorded as Old Galician-Portuguese tronar in the 14th century.^[2][1][3] Cunha and Wiktionary explain the /r/ by the influence of tonitrus (“thunder”), through a Vulgar Latin *tronitus;^[2][1][4][5] Nascentes and Aurélio see it as reinforcing the sound-imitation.^[2][1][4][5] The REW gives both explanations: the /r/ may have become a sound element after tremō (“to tremble”), as Schuchardt thought, or come from the metathesised form of the noun.^[6] Houaiss calls the origin disputed: Machado derives the verb from trom (“thunder, cannon”), others from the Latin verb.^[7]

The same Latin verb with /r/ is Spanish tronar, Catalan tronar and Old Italian tronare, and without it Italian tonare, French tonner and Romanian tuna.^[6][8] For the Spanish verb Corominas also takes the /r/ from the old noun tronido, from the Latin noun.^[9]

The Latin verb goes back to *(s)tenh₂- (“to thunder”), the root of the English word thunder.^[1][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Pereira (1697) and Bluteau (1712) define troar as “to thunder”, and Bluteau quotes Troa o Ceo, arde o Orizonte “the sky thunders, the horizon burns” from the Obras Metricas of D. Francisco Manuel.^[11][12] Houaiss's first date, the second half of the 18th century, comes from a poet's odes.^[7]

Semantic evolution

Morais (1789) adds to “to thunder” the transferred sense “to make a great crash and shaking”.^[13] Later dictionaries extend it to drums and instruments played loudly, to bells and cannon, and to a voice that thunders against something;^{[14][5][7][15]} Caldas Aulete and Aurélio also record the infinitive as a noun, o troar “the roar, the boom”.^{[14][5][7][15]} In Freixo de Espada à Cinta it still means “to thunder”.^[16]

Timeline

• 14th century – first record, as tronar.^[2]
• 1697 – Pereira defines Troar as “to have thunder”.^[11]
• 1712 – Bluteau quotes D. Francisco Manuel.^[12]
• 1734 – Feijó lists Troar “to make thunder”.^[17]
• c. 1750–1799 – Houaiss's first date, in a poet's odes.^[7]
• 1789 – Morais records the sense “to make a great crash”.^[13]

Meanings

Verb

1. To thunder.^[1][5][15]
2. To make a great noise; to boom, resound: Os canhões troavam ao longe.^[7][5][3]
3. Of instruments: to sound loudly.^[7][15][3]
4. To shout, rail (contra, against): O orador troava contra os impostos.^[7][5][3]

Noun

1. A loud noise, a boom.^[5][15]

Word family

• troada
• troante

Related words

• estrondo
• trom
• trovejar
• trovoar
• atroar
• Latin tonō
• Spanish tronar

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 Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. trom
3. ^ a b c d 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. troar
4. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. troar
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. troar
6. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 8778
7. ^ 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. troar
8. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 509
9. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 659
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. tonō
11. ^ a b Pereira, Bento (1697), Thesouro da lingoa portuguesa, in the 1697 edition of his Prosodia (1st ed. 1647; CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. troar
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. troar
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, 494
14. ^ a b 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. troar
15. ^ a b c d e 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. troar
16. ^ Instituto da Lingua Galega, Tesouro do léxico patrimonial galego e portugués (TLPGP), Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, https://ilg.usc.gal/tesouro, p. s.v. troar
17. ^ 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. troar