nit

Forms

nit f (plural nits)^[1] Old Catalan wrote nuit or nuyt until the middle of the 14th century;^[2][3] nit appears at the end of the 13th, and in a Barcelona document of 1315 the two forms stand in the same passage.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Catalan nuyt, which is inherited from Latin nox (“night”), ablative ⟨nocte⟩.^[2][4][1] The Latin word comes from *nok⁽ʷ⁾ts, from *nókʷts, which also gave Ancient Greek νύξ (núx) and Old English niht.^[1]

The same Latin word is Romanian noapte, Italian notte, French nuit, Occitan nuèch, Spanish noche and Portuguese noite.^[5]

The old form ⟨nuit⟩ came from Latin ⟨nocte⟩ through ⟨*nu(o)it⟩, with /kt/ becoming /it/.^[2] Following Joan Coromines, the DECat explains the later ⟨nit⟩ by a shift of the stress onto the /i/, ⟨nuít⟩, and the loss of the labial /w/, which was hard to pronounce after /n/.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is nuit in the Homilies d'Organyà, at the end of the 12th century.^[2][4] The sense is the time between sunset and sunrise, as in all later texts.^[2][6]

Semantic evolution

Nuit is the form of Jaume I's chronicle, Desclot, Muntaner and documents up to 1309;^[2] nit appears now and then in Desclot, in the Set savis, in Llull and in documents from Camarasa and Tàrrega at the end of the 13th century.^[2] In the last third of the 14th century nit prevails;^[2] nuit is rare in the 15th, and neither Bernat Metge nor Vicent Ferrer seems to use it.^[2]

The phrases de nit and de nits “by night” go back to the beginnings of the language, as does nit i dia “unceasingly”;^[2][7] gran nit “late at night” is recorded in 1472.^[2][7] Medieval texts also have donar part a la nit, to stop for the night, and donar la bona nit, to say good night.^[8][2] Joan Coromines objected to les nou de la nit for les nou del vespre as an imitation of Spanish, which has no word for vespre.^[2] The derivative tranuitar “to stay up all night” is found from the 13th to the 15th century.^[2]

Timeline

• 1175–1224 – nuit in the Homilies d'Organyà.^[2]
• 1200–1249 – nit in the Usatges de Barcelona.^[3]
• 1283 – Desclot writes alta nit for the dead of night.^[8]
• 1315 – a Barcelona document has nuyts and de nit in one passage.^[2]
• 1381 – Bernat Metge has a nit “tonight” in Lo somni.^[8]
• 1472 – Joan Esteve glosses venguí gran nit with Latin multa nocte veni.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. night, the part of the day between dusk and dawn: A l'estiu les nits són curtes.^[7][4]
2. The time when there is no daylight at all; darkness.^[7][4]
3. The night before certain feasts: la nit de Sant Joan, la nit de Nadal.^[4]

Word family

• anit
• tranuitar
• tranuitador

Related words

• nocturn
• pernoctar
• vespre
• Latin nox
• Spanish noche

Usage notes

The GDLC also heads a unit of luminance called nit, one candela per square metre, from Latin nitidus (“bright”).^[4] Coromines adds that anit in the sense “the coming night” is popular in central Catalan and in the mountains.^[9]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Coromines, Joan (1980–2001), Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana, 10 vols., Barcelona: Curial / La Caixa (online ed., Institut d'Estudis Catalans 2024), p. 5, 931
3. ^ a b c Torruella, Joan; Pérez Saldanya, Manuel; Martines, Josep (dirs.), Corpus Informatitzat del Català Antic (CICA), https://www.cica.cat, p. s.v. nit
4. ^ a b c d e f Enciclopèdia Catalana, Gran diccionari de la llengua catalana (GDLC), Barcelona: Enciclopèdia Catalana; online edition, https://www.diccionari.cat, p. s.v. nit
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5973
6. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. nit
7. ^ a b c d Institut d'Estudis Catalans (2007), Diccionari de la llengua catalana, 2nd ed. (DIEC2), Barcelona: Edicions 62; online edition with later updates, https://dlc.iec.cat, p. s.v. nit
8. ^ a b c Faraudo de Saint-Germain, Lluís, Vocabulari de la llengua catalana medieval, online edition, Barcelona: Institut d'Estudis Catalans, p. s.v. nit
9. ^ Coromines, Joan (1980–2001), Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana, 10 vols., Barcelona: Curial / La Caixa (online ed., Institut d'Estudis Catalans 2024), p. 10, 34