ele

Forms

ele m (feminine ela, masculine plural eles, feminine plural elas)^[1] Before the spelling reforms the word was written elle, the spelling of a letter of 1500 and of Vieira's dictionary (1871), which refers ele to it.^[2][3][1] Morais (1813) enters ele as an old form of elle.^[4] The feminine ela is from Latin illa, and is recorded in the 13th century too.^[5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin ille (“that”), written Old Galician-Portuguese ele in the oldest texts.^[6][5][7][1] The old language also had the short form Old Galician-Portuguese el, which was much commoner than the long one in the Cancioneiro da Ajuda; in the satirical cantigas the long form is the rarer, sometimes required only by the metre.^[8][9]

The same Latin word gave the pronouns Galician ele, Spanish él, Catalan ell, French il, Italian egli and Romanian el.^[10][1] In its unstressed use it also gave the article o.^[11]

The Latin pronoun replaced the older olle; de Vaan explains the change of o- to i- by analogy with iste.^[12] Wiktionary traces the older pronoun to *olnos and to Proto-Indo-European *h₂el- (“beyond, other”), the root of alius (“other”) and alter.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The testament of King Afonso II of 1214 already has the plural and the short form: que eles as departiam… que el ten ou teiuer.^[8]

Semantic evolution

In the old language the pronoun was used mainly as subject and after prepositions, and only now and then, with emphasis, as direct object.^[6] In informal Brazilian Portuguese it is the normal direct object (eu vi ele), in educated as well as uneducated speech, although normative grammar condemns the use.^[6][13] In informal European Portuguese ele can stand as an empty subject of impersonal verbs, or as a mere filler word.^[6][7] As a noun, ele is a euphemism for the devil.^[6]

The pronoun passed into Indo-Portuguese as êll.^[1]

Timeline

• 1214 – eles and el in the testament of Afonso II.^[8]
• 13th century – the pronoun and its feminine ela are recorded.^[5]
• 14th century – ele in the Trasladação de S. Nicolau.^[14]
• 1500 – the spelling elle in a private letter.^[2]
• 1813 – Morais enters ele as an old form of elle.^[4]
• 1871 – Vieira heads the word elle.^[3]

Meanings

Pronoun

1. he, him, it: the third-person masculine singular personal pronoun, used as subject, as predicate and after prepositions: Ele trabalha num banco. Falei com ele ontem.^[6][7][1]
2. (Brazil, informal) Him, it, as a direct object: Encontrei ele na rua.^[6][13][1]
3. Repeating a subject placed at the head of the sentence: O Pedro, ele nunca se engana.^[6]
4. (Portugal, informal) An empty subject of impersonal verbs, or a filler word: Ele faz cá um frio!^[6][7]

Noun

1. (euphemistic) The devil.^[6]

Related words

• o
• lhe
• aquele
• Latin ille
• Galician ele
• Spanish él

Usage notes

Como ele só means “as only he can be or do”, in his own particular way; in informal Brazilian Portuguese also que só ele.^[6]

A separate noun ele, pronounced with an open /ɛ/, is the name of the letter L, from the way the letter is spelt out; its plural is eles or ll.^{[6][7][15][16]}

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b CLUL (ed.) (2014), P.S. Post Scriptum: Arquivo Digital de Escrita Quotidiana em Portugal e Espanha na Época Moderna, Lisboa: Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, http://ps.clul.ul.pt, p. s.v. ele
3. ^ a b Vieira, Frei Domingos (1871–1874), Grande Diccionario Portuguez ou Thesouro da lingua portugueza, 5 vols., Porto: Ernesto Chardron e Bartholomeu H. de Moraes, p. 3, 23
4. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 1, 650
5. ^ a b c Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. ele
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. ele
7. ^ 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. ele
8. ^ a b c 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. el
9. ^ 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. ele
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 4266
11. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. ille
12. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
13. ^ 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. ele
14. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. ele
15. ^ Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. ele
16. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. ele