nada

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin nāta (“born”), the feminine participle in the Late Latin phrase rēs nāta (“a thing born”), written Old Galician-Portuguese nada in the oldest texts.^[2][3][4][1] Classical Latin already had the phrase, in the sense “according to the circumstances”, in a comedy of Terence.^[2][5] Houaiss, after Corominas, explains the change by the constant use of the phrase in negative sentences, under the influence of hominēs nātī (“people born”), so that it took on the indefinite value of a pronoun.^[2] Nascentes sees an analogy with homō nātus (“a man born”): the noun was dropped and the word, through the omission of “not”, passed from “something” to “nothing”, keeping the older sense in questions and doubtful phrases.^[4] Aurélio and Wiktionary reconstruct the starting point as “no thing born”.^[6][1]

It shares its origin with Spanish nada.^[7][8] Corominas dates the Spanish word to 1074 and the phrase cosa nada (“a thing born”) to the 10th century, and derives nadie (“nobody”) in parallel from the plural phrase for “people born”.^[7][8] The other half of the phrase gave the words for “nothing” in Galician ren, French rien and Catalan res, from rēs (“thing”).^[1][9]

The participle belongs to nāscor (“to be born”).^[3][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the Cancioneiro da Ajuda, nada still means “something, anything”, and “nothing” only with non, nen or nunca before the verb.^[11] The cantigas use it mostly in negative sentences, and in phrases such as non dar nada “not to care” and non seer nada “to be worthless”: que oimais non é nada / a vida que fazemos “for from now on the life we lead is nothing”.^[12][11]

Semantic evolution

Houaiss dates the adverb “not at all” and the noun “nothingness” to the 13th century as well.^[2] The early dictionaries gloss it with Latin nihil, and Bluteau (1712) gives the noun o nada a philosophical article on “not being, the negation and privation of all entities”.^[13][14][15] Morais (1813) notes that, used elliptically, nada is the same as não.^[16]

The noun also has the senses “trifle”, “a tiny amount” and “a worthless person”, and philosophy uses it for non-being.^[2][17] Set phrases include de nada “you're welcome”, nada feito “no deal, no result” and antes de mais nada “first of all”.^[2][18] The word passed into Kabuverdianu and Guinea-Bissau Creole as nada.^[1]

Timeline

• 1188–1230 – Houaiss's first date for the pronoun, after Machado.^[2]
• 13th century – first record in Cunha; the adverb and the noun in Houaiss.^[3][2]
• 13th century – the Cancioneiro da Ajuda and the cantigas d'amigo use nada.^[11]
• c. 1400 – the Flos Sanctorum fragment of Santiago de Compostela (witness of 1380–1425), the first prose text of the Corpus de Textos Antigos with the word.^[19]
• 1569 – Cardoso glosses Nada with Latin nihil.^[13]
• 1712 – Bluteau's article on o nada, non-being.^[15]
• 1813 – Morais records nada standing for não.^[16]

Meanings

Pronoun

1. nothing, not anything: Ele não disse nada.^[2][1][20]
2. In questions, anything: Precisas de nada?^[2]

Adverb

1. Not at all, in no way: O exame não foi nada fácil.^[2][17][1]

Noun

1. nothingness, non-existence; the void before or after existence.^[2][1][6]
2. (philosophy) Non-being, as opposed to being.^[2][17]
3. Emptiness, insignificance: the vanity of things.^[2]
4. A very small amount: um nada de sal.^[2][1][18]
5. A trifle; a worthless person or thing; a humble condition.^[2][20][17]

Word family

• nonada

Related words

• nado
• nascer
• Spanish nada

Usage notes

As a subject before the verb nada stands alone (Nada mudou), but after the verb it needs não or sem before it (não mudou nada).^[17] It is unrelated to the form nada of the verb nadar “to swim”, which comes from Latin natare.^[21]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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 Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. nada
3. ^ a b c Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. nada
4. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. nada
5. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 348
6. ^ a b Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. nada
7. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. nadie
8. ^ a b 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. nada
9. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. rien
10. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. nāta
11. ^ 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. nada
12. ^ Universo Cantigas: Glosario da poesía medieval profana galego-portuguesa, A Coruña: Instituto da Lingua e Literatura (ILLA), Universidade da Coruña, https://www.universocantigas.gal, p. s.v. nada
13. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. nada
14. ^ Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. nada
15. ^ 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. nada
16. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 332
17. ^ a b c d e 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. nada
18. ^ a b Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 6412
19. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. nada
20. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. nada
21. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. nadar