verbo

Forms

verbo m (plural verbos)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote verbo, vervo and ueruo, and a notarial book of Noia also has berbo.^[2][3] A private letter of 1607 still spells it berbo.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin verbum (“word”), written Old Galician-Portuguese verbo and Old Galician-Portuguese vervo in the oldest texts.^[5][2][1] Nascentes derives the modern form through the old one with /v/, which he says underwent a dissimilation, and in his fuller dictionary he calls the modern form a remade one.^[6][7] The REW lists the old Portuguese form, in the sense “proverb”, among the popular outcomes of the Latin word, and puts the modern Portuguese and Spanish words in brackets as learned forms.^[8] García de Diego likewise counts the Spanish word a learned one beside the old Old Spanish vierbo “word”.^[9]

The same Latin word is Galician verbo, Catalan verb and Italian verbo.^[8][1] French verve goes back to Vulgar Latin *verva, the Latin plural of the noun taken as a feminine singular.^[10] The plural also gave the Portuguese noun verba, at first each clause of a document and later a sum of money, recorded from the 13th century.^[2]

In Latin grammar the word was used for the “verb” as against the noun, on the model of Ancient Greek ῥῆμα (rhêma, “word, saying”), and the Church used it to render λόγος (lógos).^[5][11] The Latin noun is from *werðom, from Proto-Indo-European *werdʰom (“word”), and is cognate with Old High German wort, English word and Lithuanian var̃das (“name”).^[1][12] De Vaan analyses the Indo-European word as *werh₁-dʰh₁-o- (“making a statement”), from a root meaning “to speak” and the root “to put”.^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss dates the word to 1279, after Machado, without a quotation.^[5] The notarial records of Noia in Galicia show the old uses: in 1332 a notary copies a deed de veruo a ueruo “word for word”, and in 1381 a note says that a ueruo “word” written above the line is valid.^[3] The first sense is thus “word”, a sense now formal or literary.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The phrase de verbo a verbo “word for word, literally” was a formula of the medieval notaries.^[3] The old form also meant a saying or proverb, a sense the modern dictionaries mark as old.^[8][13][1] Houaiss dates the grammatical sense “verb” to 1540.^[5] Bluteau's dictionary (1712–1728) treats the word as a term of theology, with the verbo mental and the Verbo Divino, the Son as the second person of the Trinity, and as a term of grammar, the part of speech conjugated by tenses and moods.^[14] Morais (1789) defines it as a part of speech and blames the habit of putting the verb at the end of the sentence in the Latin manner.^[15]

From “word” the noun came to mean speech, eloquence and the manner of expressing oneself, and also a tone of voice.^[16][17][13] Silva Bastos records the school slang agarrar-se ao verbo “to study hard”, which the Porto dictionary still gives.^[18][19]

Timeline

• 1279 – Houaiss's first date for the word, after Machado.^[5]
• 13th century – Cunha dates both verbo and vervo to this century.^[2]
• 1332 – de veruo a ueruo “word for word” in a notarial book of Noia.^[3]
• 1381 – ueruo “word” in the same records.^[3]
• 1431–1446 – the Vida de Santa Maria Egipcíaca has the word, its first record in the CTA.^[20]
• 1540 – Houaiss's date for the grammatical sense.^[5]
• 1607 – berbo in a private letter.^[4]
• 1697 – Pereira glosses Verbo with Latin verbum.^[21]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau describes the theological Verbo Divino and the grammatical verb.^[14]
• 1789 – Morais defines the verb as a part of speech.^[15]

Meanings

Noun

1. (grammar) A verb: the class of words that express an action, process or state and form the core of the predicate; a word of this class: Este verbo é irregular.^[5][17][1]
2. (formal) A word; what is said; speech, discourse.^[5][22][1]
3. The way one expresses oneself in words; eloquence.^[16][13][19]
4. A tone of voice; intonation.^[17][13]
5. (religion, capitalised) The Word, the second person of the Trinity, made flesh in Christ.^[5][17][13]
6. (archaic) A saying, proverb.^[13][1]

Word family

• averbar
• averbação
• verbete
• verborragia
• verborreia

Related words

• verbal
• verbalizar
• verba
• verboso
• verbosidade
• Latin verbum
• Galician verbo
• French verve

Usage notes

Agarrar-se ao verbo is a set phrase for “to apply oneself to study”.^[19][18] Many terms of grammar are formed with the word: verbo auxiliar, verbo abundante (a verb with two or more equivalent forms, such as the participles aceitado, aceito and aceite).^[5][17]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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. verbo
3. ^ a b c d e 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. verbo
4. ^ a b 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. verbo
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. verbo
6. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. verbo
7. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 522
8. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 9223
9. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. verbum
10. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. verve
11. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. verbum
12. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
13. ^ a b c d e f Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. verbo
14. ^ 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. verbo
15. ^ 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, 18
16. ^ 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. verbo
17. ^ a b c d e Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. verbo
18. ^ a b Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. verbo
19. ^ a b c Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 9443
20. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. verbo
21. ^ 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. verbo
22. ^ 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. verbo