nenhum

Forms

nenhum (feminine nenhuma, masculine plural nenhuns, feminine plural nenhumas)^[1] Houaiss's oldest forms are nengum (1214), neum (1257), nenhua (1264), nenguno (1268), and in the 13th century negũũ, nen ũu, neun and niuu;^[2][3] Cunha adds nium (13th century) and nĩgũ (14th).^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin nec ūnus (“not even one”), written Old Galician-Portuguese nen ũu and later Old Galician-Portuguese nin ũu in the oldest texts.^[2][3][1][4] Wiktionary adds that the form with /ɲ/ pushed out a parallel Old Galician-Portuguese ningũu.^[1] Nascentes, Silva Bastos and Aurélio describe the word instead as nem and um joined into one word, the palatal /ɲ/ arising between the two in connected speech.^[5][6][7] The Latin nec is a shortened form of neque (“and not”), from Proto-Indo-European *nékʷe, and ūnus (“one”) goes back to *h₁óynos.^[1][8] The phrase is found in Late Latin from at least the 5th century.^[1]

The same Latin phrase is Galician ningún, Spanish ninguno and Old Occitan negun.^[9][1] The forms with ⟨d-⟩ of Occitan, Catalan and older Spanish, such as Old Spanish deguno, are explained by dissimilation.^[9][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss's first date, 1214, is from Machado, with the form nengum; the word is common in 13th-century texts in a great variety of spellings.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

In the old language nenhum was used with the negative não even at the head of the sentence: Morais quotes Nenhuma amizade não pode ser tão pura… from the prologue of the Nobiliário, and notes that in his day the não was left out when nenhum comes before the verb.^[11][12][2] Otherwise the não is kept.^[12] Besides “not one”, the word means “any” in the second term of a comparison and “null, of no value”, senses Aulete and Morais record.^[13][11] It can also follow the noun, which nem um cannot, and with não it can mean simply “a”.^[2][7]

Timeline

• 1214 – nengum, Machado's first record.^[2]
• 1257–1268 – the forms neum, nenhua and nenguno.^[2]
• 13th century – first record of the adverb nenhures “nowhere”.^[3]
• 1504 – nehum and nenhum in a private letter.^[14]
• 1697 – Pereira renders Nenhum, ou nenhuma by Latin nemo.^[15]
• 1789 – Morais notes that the não once used with the word at the head of a sentence is now dropped.^[11]

Meanings

Determiner

1. no, not one: excludes every member of the class named by the noun: nenhum convidado chegou;^[2][16][1] não tenho nenhuma pressa.^[2][16][1]
2. (in the second term of a comparison) any: corre mais do que nenhum outro.^[2][7]
3. Null, non-existent, of no value: um livro de nenhum interesse.^[2][17]
4. (with não) A, any; used to stress the denial: não sou nenhum perito.^[2][13]

Pronoun

1. none, not one person or thing; ninguém: chamei todos, mas nenhum veio.^[2][18][1]

Word family

• nenhures

Related words

• nem
• um
• ninguém
• algum
• Galician ningún
• Spanish ninguno

Usage notes

In Brazil estar a nenhum or sem nenhum means “to be broke, penniless”.^[2][7] In Portugal não fazer nenhum means “to do nothing, not to work”, and de maneira nenhuma means “by no means”.^[17]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. nenhum
3. ^ a b c d e Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. nenhum
4. ^ 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. nenhum
5. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. nenhum
6. ^ Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. nenhum
7. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. nenhum
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 Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5875
10. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. nec unus
11. ^ a b c 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, 113
12. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 340
13. ^ 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. nenhum
14. ^ 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. nenhum
15. ^ 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. nenhum
16. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. nenhum
17. ^ a b Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 6475
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. nenhum