venerar

Forms

venerar (first-person singular present venero, first-person singular preterite venerei, past participle venerado)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin veneror (“to worship, revere”), a learned word.^[2][3][4][1] Cunha, Nascentes and Aurélio quote the active form venerare, which early Latin also used beside the deponent;^[3][5][6][7] Porto Editora calls it Vulgar Latin.^[3][5][6][7] Houaiss notes that the verb meant at first “to address a request to the gods” and was used in the phrase Venerem venerārī (“to honour Venus”) before it spread to the other gods and to anything worthy of reverence.^[2]

The same Latin verb gave Spanish venerar (1438), French vénérer (about 1450) and Italian venerare.^[8][9][1]

The Latin verb is derived from the neuter noun venus (“desire, charm”), the source also of the goddess's name.^[6][1] De Vaan reconstructs it as *wenos-, from *wenh₁-os (“desire”), and the OLD compares the English word wish.^[10][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss's first record is from 1572, in the index of the vocabulary of Os Lusíadas.^[2] There it already has the sense “to hold in reverent respect”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Barbosa (1611) and Pereira (1697) gloss it with Latin veneror and colo “to worship”, and Bluteau with “to revere, to respect greatly”, illustrated by venerar a memoria de alguem.^[11][12][13] Morais (1813) puts the religious sense first, reverence towards something holy, and the respect owed to people as a figurative use.^[14] The derivatives followed: veneração, venerável and venerando in the 16th century, venerabundo in the 17th, venerabilidade in the 18th and venerador in 1813.^[3]

In the Minho the verb also means “to feed, to keep (a family)”, a sense the original Caldas Aulete and Houaiss record.^[15][2] The TLPGP has a Portuguese dialect sense “to wound”.^[16]

Timeline

• 1572 – first record, in Os Lusíadas.^[2]
• 16th century – veneração, venerável and venerando are recorded.^[3]
• 1611 – Barbosa glosses it with Latin veneror.^[11]
• 1641 – first record in the private letters of the Post Scriptum corpus.^[17]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau defines it as “to revere, to respect greatly”.^[13]
• 1813 – Morais separates the religious and the figurative sense; first record of venerador.^[14][3]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To hold in deep, reverent respect; to revere (reverenciar): venerar os mais velhos.^[2][5][1]
2. (transitive) To pay worship (culto) to something sacred; to adore (adorar): venerar um ícone.^[2][18][15]
3. (transitive) To hold in great esteem; to admire greatly.^[2][19]
4. (transitive, Minho) To provide with food; to keep, to support (sustentar).^[2][15]

Word family

• veneração
• venerador
• venerável
• venerando
• venerabundo
• venerabilidade

Related words

• Vênus
• venéreo
• Latin veneror

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. venerar
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. venerar
4. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. venerar
5. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. venerar
6. ^ a b c d Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. ueneror
7. ^ a b Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 9429
8. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. venerar
9. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. vénérer
10. ^ 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. venus
11. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. venerar
12. ^ 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. venerar
13. ^ 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. venerar
14. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 839
15. ^ a b c 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. venerar
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. venerar
17. ^ CLUL (ed.) (2014), P.S. Post Scriptum: Arquivo Digital de Escrita Quotidiana em Portugal e Espanha na Época Moderna, Lisboa: Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, http://ps.clul.ul.pt, p. s.v. venerar
18. ^ 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. venerar
19. ^ 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. venerar