mas

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin magis (“more”), through the old form Old Galician-Portuguese mais, which was shortened to the present form when it was used as an unstressed conjunction.^[2][3][4][1] Carolina Michaëlis explained the reduction by the weak vowels of unstressed words in the medieval language, of which she counted more than twenty examples in the songbook of Ajuda.^[5] The stressed adverb kept the full form, so that the conjunction and mais are doublets.^[1]

The sense “but” grew in contexts where an opposition was already implied, and became fixed in the particle.^[2][4] Corominas notes that the adversative use of the Latin word already existed in Vulgar Latin.^[6] In Portuguese it displaced the Latin conjunction sed.^[4]

The same Latin word is Galician mais, Spanish más, Catalan mes, Occitan mas, French mais, Italian ma and Romanian mai; several of these, like Portuguese, use it both for “more” and for “but”.^[7][1] The Oxford Latin Dictionary analyses the Latin word as the stem of magnus (“great”) with a reduced comparative suffix, and Wiktionary traces it to Proto-Indo-European *meǵh₂- (“great”).^[8][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The conjunction is common in the poetry of the 13th century: the Cantigas de Santa Maria write mas a voz do ceo lles disse “but the voice from heaven told them”, and a satirical cantiga of Fernan Soarez de Quinhones uses it in the same way.^[5] The older mais is found beside it in the same function.^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

From the medieval language on, the word has introduced a statement that restricts or contradicts what came before, and also a correction after a negation (“not this, but that”), a use often strengthened with sim.^[2][9][1] At the start of a sentence it links what follows to what was said before, and it can stress an exclamation or a question of surprise.^[10][9][1] Used as a noun it means an objection or a defect, as in the phrase nem mas nem meio mas “no buts about it”.^[11][12]

The word has passed into Macanese.^[1]

Timeline

• 13th century – mas and mais as conjunctions in the cantigas.^[2][5]
• 1416 – first record in the CTA corpus of medieval prose, in the Vida do Cativo Monge Confesso.^[13]
• 1697 – Pereira glosses it with Latin sed, ast and at.^[14]
• 1712 – Bluteau calls it a distinguishing or contrasting conjunction and lists mas antes “but rather”.^[15]
• 1734 – Feijó separates the conjunction mas from más, the feminine plural of mau.^[16]
• 1789 – Morais defines it as a distinguishing and adversative conjunction and records mas que “even though”.^[17]

Meanings

Conjunction

1. but, however: introduces a clause that restricts or contradicts the one before.^[2][10][1]
2. After a negation, introduces what is true instead (“but rather”).^[1][9]
3. At the start of a sentence, links it to what was said before, or marks surprise, protest or a change of subject.^[10][9]
4. (colloquial) Stresses a word just said by repeating it: caro, mas caro mesmo “expensive, really expensive”.^[11][1]

Noun

1. An objection, a difficulty; a defect: nem mas nem meio mas.^[11][12][18]

Related words

• mais
• Latin magis
• Spanish más

Usage notes

mas is also the contraction of the pronouns me and as (deu-mas “he gave them to me”), which is a different form.^[10][19] In Brazil mas is sometimes written by mistake for mais.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. mas
3. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. mas
4. ^ a b c Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. mas
5. ^ a b c d 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. mas
6. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 867
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5228
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. magis
9. ^ a b c d 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. mas
10. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. mas
11. ^ a b c Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. mas
12. ^ a b Michaelis: Moderno Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, São Paulo: Melhoramentos (online as Michaelis Dicionário Brasileiro da Língua Portuguesa, https://michaelis.uol.com.br), p. s.v. mas
13. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. mas
14. ^ Pereira, Bento (1697), Thesouro da lingoa portuguesa, in the 1697 edition of his Prosodia (1st ed. 1647; CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. mas
15. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. mas
16. ^ 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. mas
17. ^ 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. 2, 62
18. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 5986
19. ^ 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. mas