advento

Forms

advento m (plural adventos)^[1] The older form is avento, written auento in the 13th century and aueto in the 14th; it was still used in the 16th century.^[2][3][4] Feijó (1734) prescribes Advento and rejects Avento.^[5]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin adventus (“arrival, coming”), a learned word, whose older form was Old Galician-Portuguese avento.^[3][4][1] Machado calls the old form a divergent form of the same word.^[4] The Latin noun is formed on adveniō (“to arrive”), from ad- and veniō (“to come”).^[6][1] In Church Latin it came to mean the coming of Christ, and then the four weeks before Christmas.^[4][7][8]

The same Latin word is Galician avento, Spanish adviento, French avent and Italian avvento.^[1] French first wrote it with -d- in 1119, then simplified it under the influence of avant and avenir.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Machado's first record, in the 13th century, is a cantiga d'amigo of Juião Bolseiro: Mays mostra mh as noites d'Auento “but it shows me the nights of Advent”.^[4][10] The DDGM glossary explains them as nights as long as they are at that time of year.^[11] The sense is the liturgical season before Christmas.^[12]

Semantic evolution

The learned spelling appears in the 16th century: Góis writes jejũam ho aduento, & ha quaresma “they fast during Advent and Lent”.^[4] Gil Vicente still writes no avento in the same century.^[4] Bluteau (1712–1728) defines it only as the four weeks before Christmas, explaining that it begins on the Sunday after the feast of Saint Andrew.^[13] The general senses “arrival” and “beginning, institution” appear in the 19th-century dictionaries: the original Caldas Aulete gives o advento da monarquia constitucional.^[14][15] Modern dictionaries put “coming, arrival” first and write the liturgical sense with a capital, Advento.^[3][16][17]

Timeline

• 13th century – noites d'Auento in a cantiga d'amigo of Juião Bolseiro.^[4][2]
• 14th century – the spelling aueto.^[3]
• 16th century – Góis writes aduento, and Gil Vicente still has avento.^[4]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau defines the liturgical season.^[13]
• 1734 – Feijó prescribes Advento and rejects Avento.^[5]
• 1871–1874 – Vieira derives it from Latin adventus and quotes the tradition that Saint Peter instituted the fast.^[18]
• 1899 – Figueiredo lists “arrival, coming; beginning” beside the liturgical sense.^[15]

Meanings

Noun

1. (formal) arrival, coming or appearance of someone or something: o advento da primavera.^[3][16][1]
2. The beginning or establishment of something: o advento da imprensa.^[3][16][19]
3. (Christianity, usually Advento) Advent, the liturgical season of the four Sundays before Natal, a time of preparation for the coming of Christ.^{[3][16][17][1]}
4. (Christianity) The coming of Christ.^[19][14]

Related words

• advir
• adventício
• aventura
• Spanish adviento
• French avent

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. advento
3. ^ a b c d e f g Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. advento
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Machado, José Pedro (1987), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., 5 vols., Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, p. s.v. advento
5. ^ a b Feijó, João de Morais Madureira (1734), Orthographia, ou Arte de escrever, e pronunciar com acerto a lingua portugueza, Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. advento
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. adventus
7. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. advento
8. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. adventus
9. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. avent
10. ^ 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. avento
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. avento
12. ^ Lopes, Graça Videira; Ferreira, Manuel Pedro et al. (2011–), Cantigas Medievais Galego-Portuguesas [online database], Lisboa: Instituto de Estudos Medievais, FCSH/NOVA, https://cantigas.fcsh.unl.pt, p. s.v. avento
13. ^ 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. advento
14. ^ 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. advento
15. ^ a b Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. 32
16. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. advento
17. ^ a b Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 274
18. ^ Vieira, Frei Domingos (1871–1874), Grande Diccionario Portuguez ou Thesouro da lingua portugueza, 5 vols., Porto: Ernesto Chardron e Bartholomeu H. de Moraes, p. 1, 176
19. ^ a b Academia das Ciências de Lisboa, Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, revised online edition (2023–) of the Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa Contemporânea (2001), https://dicionario.acad-ciencias.pt, p. s.v. advento