Projects and how they run

The ninth entry is levar a bom porto, and English carries the same harbour inside a word in which nobody hears it. Latin portus was the port, and a wind that pushed a ship towards it was opportunus, from ob portum, towards the harbour. From that sailor’s view of a lucky wind come « opportune », « opportunity » and « opportunist », and the whole family still means a favourable moment without anyone picturing water. The opposite was built the same way. Importunus was the wind that would not let a vessel in, which is why « importunate » describes somebody who presses at the wrong time and « to importune » is to pester. Portuguese buried nothing: it names the harbour. Levar a bom porto is to bring a thing safely in, and the picture of a crew steering the last stretch is the point of the phrase, not decoration on top of it. So a reader who renders it as « to see it through » has the sense right and has thrown the boat away, while « opportunity », the word that looks nothing like it, is the closer relative.