Etymologically
Log in

agosto

History Permalink

Etymology and origin of the Portuguese word agosto

Confidence
Established
Formation
Inherited
First attested
1242–1252 a charter More words from the 13th century
Inherited from
Latin agustus
Ultimate origin
Latin augeō

Pronunciation

  • Brazil: /aˈɡos.tu/[1]
  • Rio-de-Janeiro: /aˈɡoʃ.tu/[1]
  • Portugal: /ɐˈɡoʃ.tu/, [ɐˈɣoʃ.tu][1]
  • Portugal, Southern: /ɐˈɡoʃ.tu/[1]

Forms

agosto m (plural agostos)[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote agosto and agusto, and Houaiss records aguosto in the 15th century.[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin agustus, the popular pronunciation of Latin Augustus (“(the month) of Augustus”), with mēnsis (“month”) understood.[4][5][1] It is written Old Galician-Portuguese agosto in the oldest texts.[2] The Romans renamed the sixth month of their year, Sextīlis, in honour of the emperor Augustus in 8 BC.[5][3]

The same Latin word is Galician agosto, Spanish agosto, Catalan agost, French août, Italian agosto and Romanian agust.[6][1] The learned augusto “venerable” is its doublet.[5][1]

The emperor's title was the Latin adjective meaning “venerable, majestic”, a word of religious language.[1][7] De Vaan derives it, through a noun *augos, from augeō (“to increase”).[8] The verb goes back to Proto-Indo-European *h₂ewg-.[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Latin charters already write kalendas agustas (942) and kalendas agostas (1046), and a text of 1188–1230 in the Leges has ferias de agosto.[5][2][5] The first Romance records are dia de santa Maria de agosto (1242–1252) and eno mes d'agusto “in the month of August” (1267).[2]

Semantic evolution

The Cantigas de Santa Maria call the feast of the Assumption on 15 August a gran festa d'Agosto.[2] In Portugal agosto also meant the harvest season and the harvest itself, as it does in Galician;[6] Morais (1813) quotes Vieira's o ultimo sermão he o agosto dos pregadores “the last sermon is the preachers' harvest”.[9][10] The Romance word was taken into Basque for “harvest”.[6] Portuguese agosto passed into the creoles of Cabo Verde and Guinea-Bissau and into Hindi, Konkani, Malayalam and Tetum.[1]

Timeline

  • 942 – kalendas agustas in a Latin charter.[2]
  • 1188–1230 – istas sunt ferias de agosto in a text of the Leges.[5][2]
  • 1242–1252 – dia de santa Maria de agosto in a charter.[2]
  • 1267 – eno mes d'agusto.[2]
  • 13th century – a gran festa d'Agosto in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.[2]
  • 15th century – the spelling aguosto.[3]
  • 1569 – Cardoso translates it as Latin Augustus and Sextilis.[11]
  • 1813 – Morais records the sense “harvest time”.[9]

Meanings

Noun

  1. August, the eighth month of the year, with 31 days.[3][1]
  • augusto
  • Latin Augustus
  • Spanish agosto

Usage notes

The capitalised spelling Agosto was the norm until 1943 in Brazil and 1990 in Portugal.[1] The old Aulete gives the proverb quem dormir ao sol de agosto terá desgosto “who sleeps in the August sun will come to grief”.[10]

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 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. agosto
  3. ^ a b c d Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. agosto
  4. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. agosto
  5. ^ a b c d e f Machado, José Pedro (1987), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., 5 vols., Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, p. s.v. agosto
  6. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 786
  7. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. augustus
  8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  9. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 1, 66
  10. ^ 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. agosto
  11. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. agosto

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Agosto.” Etymologically, 15 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/pt/agosto. Accessed 16 Nov. 2026.

Last edited on . ·