dois

Forms

dois m (feminine duas)^[1] The feminine is duas, recorded from the 13th century.^[2][1] The older masculine dous is first recorded in 1214 and is still listed beside dois as the less usual form.^[3][2] Houaiss also records doos and dos in the 14th century and dois from the 15th.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin duo (“two”), from the masculine accusative duōs, written Old Galician-Portuguese dous in the oldest texts.^[4][2][1] The modern form is a later variant of the old one.^[4][2][1][5] Nascentes explains it by the alternation of the diphthongs /ou/ and /oi/ that is found in many Portuguese words.^[6] The feminine form is duās, which kept its /u/ in hiatus.^[7][2] The DDGM's glossary of the Crónica Geral finds the masculine unexpected, since it implies an earlier Old Galician-Portuguese doos and an irregular /ou/ in place of /o/.^[7]

The same Latin word is Galician dous, Spanish dos, Catalan dos, French deux, Italian due and Romanian doi.^[8][1][9]

The Latin word continues *duō, from *dwóh₁, originally a dual form.^[1][10] It is related to δύο (dúo) and to the English word two.^[1][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

Lorenzo's chronology dates the first record to 1214, in the Testament of Afonso II: aquestes dous arcebispos “these two archbishops”.^[7] A charter of 1257 has de dous in dous anos “every two years”, and the Cantigas de Santa Maria count un e dous e tres.^[7]

Semantic evolution

Through the Middle Ages and up to the 18th century the usual form was dous: Cardoso (1569), Barbosa (1611) and Bluteau all head the numeral so.^[12][13][14] Feijó noted in 1734 that one hears an i in the pronunciation and that many say dois, though he wrote dous.^[15] Vieira in 1871 still referred dois to dous, quoting dois irmãos from João de Barros's Clarimundo.^[16] Cunha dates dois to the 16th century.^[2] In Portuguese dous is now the less usual form; in Galician it is the standard one.^[3][17]

The medieval language used ambos e dous “both” as a reinforced ambos, and dous tamanho for “twice as much”.^[7] As a noun dois names the figure 2 and the card, domino or die face with two pips.^[18][19]

Timeline

• 1214 – aquestes dous arcebispos in the Testament of Afonso II.^[7]
• 1257 – de dous in dous anos in a charter.^[7]
• c. 1350 – the earliest occurrence of dous in the CTA corpus, the Trasladação de S. Nicolau.^[20]
• 15th century – Houaiss's first record of the spelling dois.^[4]
• 1569 – Cardoso's dictionary heads the numeral Dous.^[12]
• 1734 – Feijó notes that many say dois.^[15]
• 1789 – Morais heads it dous, feminine duas.^[21]
• 1899 – Figueiredo heads the word dois.^[18]

Meanings

Numeral

1. two, one plus one: Comprei dois livros e duas canetas.^[4][22][1]
2. (after a noun) second, numbered two: o capítulo dois, no dia dois de maio.^[4][19][1]
3. A small, indefinite number, a few: Vou dizer-te duas palavras.^[22][23]
4. (with the article) Both, the one and the other: os dois, as duas.^[22]

Noun

1. The number two, and the figure 2.^[4][22][1]
2. A playing card, domino or face of a die with two pips; a deuce.^[22][23][1]

Related words

• dous
• duplo
• dúplice
• Latin duo
• Spanish dos

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. dois
3. ^ a b Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. dous
4. ^ 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. dois
5. ^ Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. dois
6. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. dois
7. ^ a b c d e f g 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. dous
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 2798
9. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. duo
10. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. duo
12. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. dous
13. ^ Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. dous
14. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. dous
15. ^ 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. dous
16. ^ Vieira, Frei Domingos (1871–1874), Grande Diccionario Portuguez ou Thesouro da lingua portugueza, 5 vols., Porto: Ernesto Chardron e Bartholomeu H. de Moraes, p. 2, 1110
17. ^ Estraviz, Isaac Alonso, Dicionário Estraviz, https://estraviz.org, p. s.v. dous
18. ^ a b Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. 460
19. ^ 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. dois
20. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. dous
21. ^ 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. 1, 456
22. ^ a b c d e 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. dois
23. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. dois