mês

Forms

mês m (plural meses)^[1] Houaiss records the plurals meses (13th century), messes (14th century) and meeses (15th century), and mez in 1552.^[2] Bluteau heads the word mês, ou mez, and Feijó notes that usage also writes mez and mezes.^[3][4] Silva Bastos in 1912 still treats mês as another form of mez.^[5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin mēnsis (“month”), written Old Galician-Portuguese mes in the oldest texts.^[2][6][1] The same Latin word is Galician mes, Spanish mes, Catalan mes, Occitan mes, French mois, Italian mese and Romansh mais.^[1][7]

The Latin word comes from *mēnsis, from Proto-Indo-European *mḗh₁n̥s (“moon, month”), probably from *meh₁- (“to measure”), the moon's phases being the measure of time.^[1] De Vaan lists cognates meaning “moon” or “month”, among them Ancient Greek μήν (mḗn) and Gothic 𐌼𐌴𐌽𐌰 (mēna).^[8][1] Cunha relates it to μήνη (mḗnē, “moon”).^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss dates the word to 1255 from Cunha's slips of medieval Portuguese.^[2] Lorenzo's chronology rejects an example of 1204 as false and quotes a document of 1257, ino mes de setenbro “in the month of September”.^[9] The sense was one of the twelve divisions of the year.^[2][9]

Semantic evolution

Besides the calendar month, the word came to mean any period from a date to the same date of the next month, and a period of thirty days.^[2][10] By metonymy it means a month's wages or rent, and in popular speech menstruation.^[2][11] The Catholic calendar names months after devotions: mês de Maria is May, mês do Rosário October.^[2] Bluteau reports derivations of the word from Latin mensura “measure” or from Greek, the Greeks counting their months by moons.^[3]

Timeline

• 1255 – first record, in Cunha's slips.^[2]
• 1257 – ino mes de setenbro in a document.^[9]
• 13th century – the plural meses; 14th century messes, 15th century meeses.^[2]
• 1513 – mês in the Livro dos Mártires.^[12]
• 1552 – the spelling mez.^[2]
• 1734 – Feijó records both mês and mez.^[4]
• 1813 – mesada and mensal first recorded.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. A month, each of the twelve divisions of the year: O mês de abril tem trinta dias.^[2][11][1]
2. The period from a given date to the same date of the following month: Volto daqui a um mês.^[2][13][1]
3. Each month of a pregnancy.^[2]
4. A period of thirty consecutive days.^[2][11][1]
5. An indefinite period longer than a month, in the plural: Não o vejo há meses.^[2]
6. A month's salary, or an amount due for a month, such as rent: Pagou o mês adiantado.^[2][10][1]
7. (informal) menstruation.^[2][13][1]

Word family

• mesada

Related words

• bimestre
• mensal
• menstruação
• mênstruo
• trimestre
• semestre
• Latin mēnsis
• Spanish mes

Usage notes

Mês lunar is the time between two new moons, and mês corrente the present month.^[2][13]

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 k l m n o p q r Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. mês
3. ^ 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. mês
4. ^ 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. mês
5. ^ Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. mês
6. ^ a b c Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. mês
7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. mensis
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 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. mês
10. ^ 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. mês
11. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. mês
12. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. mês
13. ^ a b c Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 6106