vingar

Forms

vingar (first-person singular present vingo, first-person singular preterite vinguei, past participle vingado)^[1] The cantigas write vingar and vengar.^[2][3] Houaiss also records uigar, ujngar and vinguar in the 14th century.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin vindicō (“to claim at law; to avenge, punish”), written Old Galician-Portuguese vingar and Old Galician-Portuguese vengar in the oldest texts.^[4][5][1][3] Aurélio calls it the popular outcome of the Latin verb.^[6] The learned doublet, taken from the same Latin word in the 16th century, is vindicar.^[1][7]

The same Latin word is Galician vingar, Spanish vengar, Catalan venjar, French venger, Italian vendicare and Romanian vindeca (“to heal”).^[8][9] Berceo also has the older form Old Spanish vendegar.^[10]

The Latin verb is formed from vindex (“defender, protector”),^[1] which Wiktionary takes from vim (“force”) and dīcō (“to indicate”).^[1] The OLD notes that it was originally of the third conjugation, as vindicta shows.^[11]

Nascentes, following Nunes, calls the /i/ of the modern form irregular beside the old form with ⟨en⟩, and explains it from the alternation of ⟨en⟩ and ⟨in⟩ or from literary influence.^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the Cantigas de Santa Maria the verb already means “to avenge” and, reflexively, “to take revenge”: Eu o vingarey de ti “I will avenge him on you” and Deus del se vingaria “God would take revenge on him”.^[2] The cantigas d'escarnho have the reflexive with de: vingara-me do que lh' oí “I would have taken revenge for what I heard from him”, in a cantiga of King Denis.^[2] Houaiss and Cunha date the first records to the 13th century.^[4][5]

Semantic evolution

Universo Cantigas glosses the medieval verb also as “to defend”.^[3] Cardoso (1569) and Barbosa (1611) give only the sense of revenge, with Latin ulciscor and vindico.^[13][14]

The intransitive sense “to survive, to thrive” is first in Folqman (1755), of fruit that holds after the blossom has fallen.^[15] Houaiss describes it as a newborn animal or plant staying alive and growing, and derives from it the figurative “to come to pass, to succeed”: a plan or a proposal vinga when it works out.^[4] In Rio Grande do Sul it is said of a crop, a newborn child, a young animal or a clutch of eggs that survives.^[16]

Other senses are “to cross (a distance)”, “to climb over”, and “to reach”.^[4][6] Silva Bastos and Aulete also record “to free, to save” and “to defend”.^[17][18]

Timeline

• 13th century – first records; the Cantigas de Santa Maria have vingarey and se vingaria.^[4][5][2]
• 14th century – the spellings uigar, ujngar, vengar and vinguar.^[4]
• c. 1430 – first record in the CTA, in the Horto do Esposo (witness 1390–1437).^[19]
• 1542 – vymgado in a private letter.^[20]
• 1569 – Cardoso glosses it with Latin ulciscor.^[13]
• 1755 – Folqman records the sense “to set, to hold”, of fruit.^[15]
• 1871–1874 – Vieira quotes the verb from Fernão Mendes Pinto's Peregrinações.^[21]

Meanings

Verb

1. To avenge, take revenge for (an offence) by punishing the offender: vingar a morte do pai.^[4][6][1]
2. To avenge (someone) for an offence: vingou o amigo das ofensas.^[4]
3. To punish; to serve as punishment for.^[4][6]
4. (reflexive, with de) To take revenge (vingança) on or for: vingar-se do rival.^[4][22]
5. (intransitive) Of a newborn animal or plant: to survive and grow; to thrive, medrar: As mudas vingaram.^[4][22][1]
6. (intransitive, figurative) To come about; to succeed, prevail: a ideia não vingou.^[4][18][1]
7. To cross, cover (a distance); to climb over: vingar a serra.^[4][22]
8. To reach, get to.^[4][6]
9. (reflexive) To declare oneself satisfied.^[4][23]

Word family

• vingança
• vingador
• vingativo

Related words

• vindicar
• vingação
• vingado
• vingativa
• vingativamente
• Latin vindicō
• Spanish vengar

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 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. vingar
3. ^ a b c Universo Cantigas: Glosario da poesía medieval profana galego-portuguesa, A Coruña: Instituto da Lingua e Literatura (ILLA), Universidade da Coruña, https://www.universocantigas.gal, p. s.v. vingar
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. vingar
5. ^ a b c Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. víndice
6. ^ a b c d e Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. vingar
7. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. vindicar
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 9347
9. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. vindicare
10. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 770
11. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. vindicō
12. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 526
13. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. vingar
14. ^ Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. vingar
15. ^ a b Folqman, Carlos (1755), Diccionario portuguez, e latino, Lisboa: Régia Officina Silviana (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. vingar
16. ^ Schlee, Aldyr Garcia (2019), Dicionário da Cultura Pampeana Sul-Rio-Grandense, 2 vols., Pelotas: Fructos do Paiz, p. s.v. vingar
17. ^ Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. vingar
18. ^ 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. vingar
19. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. vingar
20. ^ 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. vingar
21. ^ 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, 952
22. ^ a b c Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. vingar
23. ^ 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. vingar