juventude

Forms

juventude f (uncountable)^[1] Houaiss records the spelling juventud in 1594.^[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin iuventūs (“youth”), first recorded in the 15th century.^[2][3][1] Nascentes calls it semi-learned and takes it from the Latin accusative, which ends in ⟨-ūtem⟩.^[4][1] Wiktionary also calls it probably semi-learned.^[4][1]

The Latin noun is formed from iuvenis (“young”) with the abstract suffix -tūs.^[1][5] Wiktionary compares Proto-Celtic *yuwantūts and takes the adjective back to Proto-Indo-European *h₂yuh₁en- (“young”).^[1]

The same Latin word is Spanish juventud, Galician xuventude, Catalan joventut and Italian gioventù.^[1][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss and Cunha date the word to the 15th century, without quoting the text.^[2][3] Morais (1813) defines it as mocidade “youth” with a reference to a Portuguese Eneida.^[7]

Semantic evolution

Vieira (1871–1874) defines it as the age between adolescence and manhood, and quotes it from poets of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.^[8] Silva Bastos (1912) has both the age and “young people”.^[9] Modern senses include the young people of a place, the youth organisation of a party, the youthful character of a person or thing, and technical uses in biology, geomorphology and limnology.^[2][10][11]

Timeline

• 15th century – first record.^[2][3]
• 1594 – the spelling juventud.^[2]
• 1813 – Morais lists juventude as a synonym of mocidade.^[7]
• 1871–1874 – Vieira defines the age of youth.^[8]
• 1912 – Silva Bastos records the sense “young people”.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. youth: the period of life between childhood and adulthood; mocidade.^[2][12][1]
2. Young people as a group; the young population of a place: a juventude da cidade.^[2][11][10]
3. The youth organisation of a party or movement.^[10]
4. The quality of being young; youthful freshness: juventude de espírito.^[2][12]
5. The early stage of something.^[2][10]
6. (biology) The stage before an animal or plant is fully developed.^[2]
7. (geomorphology) The stage of intense river erosion of a newly raised area.^[2]
8. (limnology) The stage when a lake receives more water than it loses.^[11]

Related words

• jovem
• juvenil
• juventa

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. juventude
3. ^ a b c Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. juventude
4. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. juventude
5. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. juventud
7. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 196
8. ^ 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, 1233
9. ^ a b Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. juventude
10. ^ a b c d 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. juventude
11. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. juventude
12. ^ a b Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 5515