momento

Forms

momento m (plural momentos)^[1] Houaiss records mometo beside momento in the 15th century, and a letter of 1600 spells it mumẽtu.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin mōmentum (“movement, impulse; weight that tips a balance; short space of time”), recorded from the 15th century.^[2][4][1] Nascentes counts it among the learned words.^[5] The Latin noun is contracted from *movimentum, formed from moveō (“to move”) and -mentum.^[6][7][1] Houaiss traces its senses within Latin from the movement that tips a balance to “weight, deciding cause” and to “a small amount, a short space of time, importance”.^[2]

The same Latin word is Galician momento, Spanish momento, Italian momento and French moment, the last borrowed in 1119.^{[8][9][10][1]}

Earliest recorded meaning

Lorenzo's chronology cites the Vita Christi: e declarou-lhos todos em uũ momento “and he made them all known in a moment”, with the gloss that a moment is the fourth part of a point; the Soliloquio has em todo momẽto “at every moment”.^[11] The word thus came in with the sense “instant, very short time”.^[4]

Semantic evolution

Pereira's dictionary of 1697 gives the Latin sense “weight”, and Bluteau has both the instant, which for mathematicians is an indivisible of time as the point is of the line, and “weight, importance”, as in cousas de pouco momento “matters of little moment”.^[12][13] Morais in 1789 adds the mechanical sense, the product of a force by its distance from a fixed point, the moment of the lever.^[14] Physics later gave it the sense of momentum, and statistics a moment of a distribution.^[15][1] The sense “importance” is now little used.^[16]

Timeline

• 1400s – first record, as Houaiss and Cunha date it, spelt momento and mometo.^[2][4]
• 1569 – Cardoso glosses it with Latin momentum.^[17]
• 1600 – mumẽtu in a private letter.^[3]
• 1600s – first record of the derivative momentâneo.^[4]
• 1697 – Pereira gives the sense “weight”.^[12]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau defines the instant and the sense “importance”.^[13]
• 1789 – Morais records the sense in mechanics.^[14]
• 1899 – first record of momentoso.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A short, indefinite space of time; an instant: Espere um momento, por favor.^[2][15][1]
2. A particular point in time: Nesse momento a luz apagou-se.^[2][16]
3. The present time: De momento não temos vagas.^[2][16]
4. A circumstance or situation: Atravessamos um momento difícil.^[2][15]
5. The right moment, an opportunity: Ainda não é o momento de decidir.^[2][15]
6. (statistics) The mean of a power of the deviations of a variable from a chosen origin.^[2][15]
7. (physics) The moment of a force, the product of the force and its position vector; torque.^[2][15]
8. (physics) momentum, the product of mass and velocity.^[15][1]
9. (dated) Importance, weight.^[16][18]

Related words

• momentâneo
• momentoso
• movimento
• mover
• Latin mōmentum

Usage notes

Houaiss and Aurélio also record a rare adjective momento “given to pulling faces”, formed from momo with the suffix -ento, which Houaiss dates to Bluteau's dictionary (1716); Aurélio adds a familiar use in Minas Gerais, the same as manhoso.^[2][15]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. momento
3. ^ 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. momento
4. ^ a b c d e Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. momento
5. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. momento
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Estraviz, Isaac Alonso, Dicionário Estraviz, https://estraviz.org, p. s.v. momento
9. ^ 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. momento
10. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. moment
11. ^ 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. momento
12. ^ a b 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. momento
13. ^ 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. momento
14. ^ a b 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, 92
15. ^ a b c d e f g h Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. momento
16. ^ 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. momento
17. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. momento
18. ^ 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. momento