vindimar

Forms

vindimar (first-person singular present vindimo, first-person singular preterite vindimei, past participle vindimado)^[1] The 13th-century texts write uendimiar and vendimian “they harvest”.^[2][3] The form vindimar is recorded from the 16th century.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin vindēmiō (“to gather the grapes”), written Old Galician-Portuguese vindimiar in the oldest texts.^[3][2][1] Nascentes calls it semi-learned.^[4] The Wikcionário instead analyses it as from Portuguese vindima + -ar.^[5]

The same Latin verb is Galician vindimar, Spanish vendimiar, Catalan veremar, French vendanger and Italian vendemmiare.^[6][1]

The Latin verb is derived from vindēmia (“grape harvest”), from vīnum (“wine”) and dēmō (“to take away”).^[1] The OLD takes it instead as a back-formation from vindēmiātor (“grape-picker”).^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss dates the verb to the 13th century, with the form vendimian, and Cunha records uendimiar in the same century, both in the sense “to gather the grapes”.^[3][2]

Semantic evolution

Cardoso and Pereira gloss it with Latin vindemio.^[8][9] Bluteau defines it as picking the grapes to press them and gives proverbs such as O velho põem a vinha, & o velho a vindima “the old man plants the vineyard and the old man harvests it”.^[10] Feijó in 1734 prescribes vindimar against the spelling vendimar.^[11]

Morais in 1789 already records a low figurative sense “to kill, to finish off”.^[12] The original Caldas Aulete quotes it from Camilo Castelo Branco's Assassinato de Macário, where a character asks whether he is expected to vindimar a man, and adds the senses “to mow down, destroy, decimate”.^[13] A regional sense “to attack” is also recorded in Portugal.^[14]

Timeline

• 13th century – first record, as vendimian and uendimiar.^[3][2]
• 16th century – the form vindimar.^[2]
• 1569 – Cardoso's dictionary lists vindimar.^[8]
• 1628 – a private letter has the participle vindimada.^[15]
• 1734 – Feijó rejects the spelling vendimar.^[11]
• 1789 – Morais records the figurative sense “to kill”.^[12]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive, intransitive) To harvest the grapes (of a vine or vineyard); to do the grape harvest: Este ano vão vindimar mais cedo.^{[3][16][17][1]}
2. (transitive) By extension, to pick or gather other fruit.^[3][16]
3. (transitive, figurative) To destroy, decimate.^[3][18][19]
4. (transitive, figurative, popular) To kill, murder.^[18][17][16]

Word family

• vindimador

Related words

• vindima
• Latin vindēmiō
• Spanish vendimiar

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 Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. vindima
3. ^ 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. vindimar
4. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. vindimar
5. ^ Wikcionário (Portuguese Wiktionary), pt.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. vindimar
6. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. vindemiare
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. vindēmiō
8. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. vindimar
9. ^ 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. vindimar
10. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. vindimar
11. ^ a b 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. vindimar
12. ^ 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, 527
13. ^ 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. vindimar
14. ^ 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. vindimar
15. ^ 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. vindimar
16. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. vindimar
17. ^ a b 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. vindimar
18. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. vindimar
19. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 9515