visão

Forms

visão f (plural visões)^[1] The 13th-century texts write vison, vijon and vision; later medieval spellings include visom, uisom, vissom and visam, and visão appears in the 15th century.^[2][3][4][5]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin vīsiō (“the act of seeing; sight”), written Old Galician-Portuguese vison and Old Galician-Portuguese vijon in the 13th century.^[2][3][1] Nascentes counts it as semi-learned.^[6] The inherited outcome of the same Latin word is thought to be avejão “ghost, apparition”, with the variants abujão and the Madeiran vejão.^[1][7] Cunha derives this word from Vulgar Latin *avīsiō, a form of the Latin word with a prothetic vowel, or perhaps from a phrase with ad (“to”).^[8]

The Latin word is also the source of Galician visión, Spanish visión, Catalan visió, French vision, Italian visione and Romanian viziune.^[1] In Latin it is formed from videō (“to see”) with the suffix -tiō.^[9][1] The verb goes back to Proto-Italic *widēō, from the root Proto-Indo-European *weyd- (“to know, see”).^[1][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantigas de Santa Maria of the later 13th century use the word for a supernatural sight: quand' o moç' esta vison vyu “when the boy saw this vision” and viu en vijon a madre de Deus “he saw the Mother of God in a vision”.^[4][11] In the Galician Crónica Troyana a woman lying in bed “dreamt a vision”, where the word means a dream.^[12]

Semantic evolution

In medieval prose the word means “vision, apparition”: the Galician translation of the Crónica General has visom for the vision a count awoke from.^[5] Cardoso's dictionary of 1569 renders it by Latin visum “a thing seen”, and Bluteau (1712–1728) defines it as “seeing” and explains the optics of sight.^[13][14] Vieira (1871–1874) gives “the act of seeing” and “apparition”, quoting the Lusíadas, where a king lays “the figures of the vision” before his council.^[15]

The figurative senses “point of view, way of understanding something” and “foresight” are modern.^[2][16][17] Aurélio adds visão de mundo “world view”.^[16] In Brazilian speech a visão is also a ghost that people say they have seen at night in cemeteries or houses.^[18]

Timeline

• 13th century – vison and vijon in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[4][2][3]
• 14th century – visom, uisom, vissom and visam.^[2]
• c. 1430 – visam in the Horto do Esposo (witness 1390–1437).^[19]
• 15th century – the spelling visão.^[2]
• 1569 – Cardoso renders visão by Latin visum.^[13]
• 1634 – first record of the inherited doublet avejão.^[20]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau defines visaõ as “seeing”.^[14]
• 1789 – visionário enters Portuguese, from French.^[21]

Meanings

Noun

1. sight, the sense of seeing; eyesight: Depois do acidente ficou com pouca visão.^[2][22][1]
2. Something seen; a view: Lá de cima tem-se uma visão ampla do vale.^[2][1]
3. An image that seems to appear in a dream, a delirium or through fear or superstition; a phantom.^[2][16]
4. (religion) An apparition of a spirit or holy figure; a revelation.^[2][16][1]
5. A way of understanding or judging a matter; point of view: A sua visão da crise é muito pessimista.^[2][16][1]
6. foresight, the ability to see possibilities and plan for the future.^[17][1]
7. (databases) A view, a logical table built from other tables.^[1]

Related words

• ver
• vidente
• vista
• visto
• avejão
• visionário
• Latin vīsiō
• Galician visión

Usage notes

A separate masculine noun visão “mink”, also spelt vison, is borrowed from French vison.^[1][16][22]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. visão
3. ^ a b c Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. visão
4. ^ a b c 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. vison
5. ^ a b 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. visom
6. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. visão
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 9376a
8. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. avejão
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. vīsiō
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. videō
11. ^ 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. vijon
12. ^ 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. visión
13. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. visão
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. visaõ
15. ^ 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, 965
16. ^ a b c d e f Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. visão
17. ^ 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. visão
18. ^ 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. visão
19. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. visam
20. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. avejão
21. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. visionário
22. ^ a b 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. visão