voltar

Forms

voltar (first-person singular present volto, first-person singular preterite voltei, past participle voltado)^[1] Houaiss records voltar and uoltar in the 15th century.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *volvitō (“to roll, turn over”), a frequentative of Latin volvō (“to roll, turn”), written Old Galician-Portuguese voltar in the oldest texts.^[2][3][1] Houaiss and Cunha give the Vulgar Latin verb in the contracted form *voltō.^[2][3] Nascentes and Aurélio explain it as built on a popular past participle *volvitus, used instead of classical volūtus.^[4][5] Wiktionary also allows a direct development from classical volūtō, though such a loss of the vowel would be unusual in a verb.^[6] Silva Bastos derived it from the classical verb.^[7]

The same Vulgar Latin verb is Galician voltar, Catalan voltar “to overturn”, Italian voltare and Old French vouter.^[8] The Latin verb goes back to Proto-Indo-European *welH- (“to turn, wind”).^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss dates the verb to the 15th century, from the slips of Cunha's index of medieval Portuguese.^[2] Cunha dates the sense “to return, go back” to the 16th.^[3] Its older relative volver is recorded from the 13th century, and the noun volta from the 13th in the sense “tumult, confusion”, from the 16th in the sense “return”.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The earliest dictionaries still give the sense “to turn”: Cardoso in 1569 renders it with Latin flecto “I bend”.^[10] Bluteau's Vocabulario leads with “to make a turn; to go or come back to a place”, and Folqman in 1755 separates voltar “to come back” from voltar “to turn round”.^[11][12] Morais in 1789 records voltar as costas “to turn one's back” and the familiar voltar casaca “to change sides”, literally “to turn one's coat”.^[13]

Today the sense “to return” is the main one, beside “to turn, face about”, “to give back as change” and, with a and an infinitive, “to do again”.^[2][14] Houaiss treats the noun volta as a back-formation from this verb, though he dates the noun earlier.^[15]

Timeline

• 15th century – first records, spelt voltar and uoltar.^[2]
• 16th century – Cunha's first record of the sense “to return”.^[3]
• 1569 – Cardoso renders it with Latin flecto.^[10]
• 1641 – a private letter writes Voltar.^[16]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau defines it as going or coming back to a place.^[11]
• 1789 – Morais records voltar casaca.^[13]

Meanings

Verb

1. To return, to go or come back to where one was: Voltámos para casa de comboio.^[2][5][1]
2. To come or go somewhere a second time.^[5]
3. To return to an earlier state;^[2][17][1] voltar a si “to come round”.^[2][17][1]
4. To take up again a subject, an activity or a habit; with a and an infinitive, to do again.^[2][18]
5. To reappear, happen again.^[2][19]
6. To turn in another direction or the other way round; to turn a garment inside out.^[19][20][1]
7. To give back; to give as change.^[2][19][1]
8. To reply, retort.^[2][19]
9. (reflexive) To turn round; to turn to someone for help; to turn against.^[20][1]
10. To get back together with a former partner.^[1]

Word family

• volta

Related words

• volver
• revolver
• Latin volvō
• Italian voltare

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. voltar
3. ^ a b c d e Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. volver
4. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. voltar
5. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. voltar
6. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. volvitare
7. ^ Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. voltar
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. volvo
10. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. voltar
11. ^ 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. voltar
12. ^ Folqman, Carlos (1755), Diccionario portuguez, e latino, Lisboa: Régia Officina Silviana (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. voltar
13. ^ 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, 534
14. ^ 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. voltar
15. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. volta
16. ^ 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. voltar
17. ^ a b Schlee, Aldyr Garcia (2019), Dicionário da Cultura Pampeana Sul-Rio-Grandense, 2 vols., Pelotas: Fructos do Paiz, p. s.v. voltar
18. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 9570
19. ^ a b c d Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. voltar
20. ^ 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. voltar