monte

Forms

monte m (plural montes)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin mōns (“mountain, hill”), written Old Galician-Portuguese monte in the oldest texts.^[2][3][1][4] The same Latin word is Galician monte, Spanish monte, Catalan mont, French mont, Italian monte and Romanian munte.^[5][1]

Wiktionary derives the Latin noun from *monts, from *móntis, of the root *men- (“to stand out, tower”).^[1] De Vaan reconstructs the same word with the meaning “protrusion, height” and compares mynydd (“mountain”).^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

A document of 1253–54 has et foy ante min en un monte u eu era “and he came before me on a hill where I was”.^[7] Houaiss's first date, 1255, is a place name.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In the medieval texts monte is a hill or mountain and also wooded or scrub-covered uncultivated land: the Cantigas de Santa Maria have per un gran monte “through a great forest”, and the Crónica Geral speaks of a dense monte.^[7] Folqman (1755) adds the sense “heap of things”, and Morais (1813) has figurative heaps of corpses or wheat and trazer a monte “to put into a common pool”.^[8][9]

Later dictionaries add the legal senses, the mass of an estate and an heir's share, and the card game monte, named, according to Nascentes, after the piles into which the pack is divided.^[2][4] In the Alentejo and the Algarve monte is the farmhouse of an estate with its buildings.^[10][5][11] The colloquial um monte de “a lot of” is widely used today.^[2][1] The word passed into Guinea-Bissau Creole as monti.^[1]

Timeline

• 1253–54 – en un monte in a document.^[7]
• 1255 – a place name Monte.^[2]
• 13th century – monte “forest” in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[7]
• c. 1430 – monte in the Horto do Esposo (copied 1390–1437).^[12]
• 1569 – Cardoso glosses monte with Latin mons.^[13]
• 1755 – Folqman records the sense “heap”.^[8]
• 1813 – Morais records trazer a monte.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. A hill or mountain, a rise of ground above its surroundings, usually lower than a montanha.^[2][11][1]
2. High ground covered with trees or scrub and not cultivated.^[2][14]
3. A heap or pile: um monte de lenha junto à porta.^[2][15][1]
4. (colloquial) A great quantity: Tenho um monte de trabalho.^[2][15][1]
5. (anatomy) A raised part of the palm near the fingers.^[2][16]
6. (law) The mass of an estate; an heir's share after the division.^[2][1]
7. A bid at an auction.^[2][16]
8. (Alentejo) A rural estate with its farm buildings.^[2][11][1]
9. (card games) A game of chance in which players bet on which of four cards turned up will be matched first; the cards left on the table.^[2][14]

Word family

• amontoar
• amontoado
• montão
• montinho

Related words

• desmontar
• montado
• montanha
• montante
• montar
• montículo
• Latin mōns
• Galician monte

Usage notes

Monte de Vênus is the mons pubis.^[2] In Portugal andar a monte means “to be on the run”, and land a monte is left uncultivated.^[2] The plural montes can mean a range of mountains.^[2]

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 g h i j k l m n o p q Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. monte
3. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. monte
4. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. monte
5. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5664
6. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
7. ^ 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. monte
8. ^ a b Folqman, Carlos (1755), Diccionario portuguez, e latino, Lisboa: Régia Officina Silviana (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. monte
9. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 315
10. ^ Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. monte
11. ^ a b c 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. monte
12. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. monte
13. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. monte
14. ^ 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. monte
15. ^ a b Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. monte
16. ^ 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. monte