trotar

Forms

trotar (first-person singular present troto, first-person singular preterite trotei, past participle trotado)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French trotter (“to trot”), first recorded in the 15th century.^[2][3][4] Houaiss gives the French route as probable, and Nascentes and Wiktionary allow Italian trottare as a second possible source.^[4][5][1]

The French verb is recorded from about 1130, and goes back to Frankish *trottōn (“to run”), which is reconstructed from the later German trotten.^[6][1] Houaiss and Cunha cite it as Old High German trottôn, and Cunha calls it an intensive of tretan (“to walk”), the verb that is treten today.^[4][2][6] Wiktionary puts a Medieval Latin *trottō between the Frankish and the Romance verbs, and traces the family to Proto-Germanic *trudōną (“to tread”) and Proto-Indo-European *dreh₂- (“to run”); the same Germanic family has the English word tread.^[1][6] The same verb is Spanish trotar, Catalan trotar and Occitan trotar.^[7][8]

Older scholars had a Latin etymology: Bluteau in 1712, following Salmasius, derived the French verb from a verb formed on Latin tolūtim (“at a trot”).^[9] Diez proposed the same, and Coelho, Figueiredo and Gonçalves Viana accepted it, but Meyer-Lübke rejected it in favour of the Germanic source.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CTA's first record is in the Livro das tres vertudes a insinança das damas, in a witness from after 1450, where the verb describes the gait of a horse.^[11]

Semantic evolution

Morais in 1789 already has the three uses of the older language: of a horse, to go at a trot; of a rider, to ride at a trot; and figuratively of a person, to go along almost running, with a quotation from Sá de Miranda.^[12] He also has a transitive use, “to put (a horse) to the trot”, which Vieira repeats in 1871.^[12][13] The noun trote is a back-formation from the verb, first recorded in the 15th century as troto.^[14] Through trote in the sense of a prank, the verb came to mean to make fun of someone, and to subject a first-year student to the initiation pranks of the older ones.^[4][15] Houaiss notes that troteiro, a mounted messenger, is recorded in the 14th century, earlier than the verb and the noun it is formed from.^[16]

Timeline

• 15th century – first record of the verb, and of the noun as troto.^[2][4][14]
• after 1450 – trotar in the Livro das tres vertudes a insinança das damas.^[11]
• 1712 – Bluteau derives the word from French and, with Salmasius, from Latin.^[9]
• 1789 – Morais records the horse's gait, the rider's and the figurative “go almost running”.^[12]
• 1813 – Cunha's first date for the spelling trote.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive, of a horse or other mount) To trot, to go at the gait between a walk and a gallop.^[4][3][1]
2. (intransitive, of a rider) To ride at a trot: Os dois amigos trotaram até à aldeia.^[4][17]
3. (intransitive) To walk with quick short steps, as if trotting; to hurry along: O cão trotava atrás do dono.^[4][3][1]
4. (transitive) To play a trote on someone; to make fun of someone.^[4][15]
5. (transitive) To subject a first-year student to hazing.^[4]

Word family

• trote
• troteiro

Related words

• French trotter
• Spanish trotar

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 Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. trotar
3. ^ a b c 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. trotar
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. trotar
5. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. trotar
6. ^ a b c Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. trotter
7. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier, p. s.v. trottare
8. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 666
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. trotar
10. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 510
11. ^ a b Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. trotar
12. ^ a b c 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, 496
13. ^ 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, 834
14. ^ a b Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. trote
15. ^ 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. trotar
16. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. troteiro
17. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. trotar