noite

Forms

noite f (plural noites)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote noite and noyte in the 13th century, and nocte, noicte and noute in the 14th.^[2][3] Noute lasted: Feijó (1734) gives it beside noite, Michaelis still lists it as a variant and Houaiss marks it obsolete.^[4][5][6]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin nox (“night”), from its accusative form, written Old Galician-Portuguese noite and Old Galician-Portuguese noyte in the oldest texts.^[2][3][1][7] Latin ⟨ct⟩ became Portuguese /jt/, as in feito and leito.^[8]

The same Latin word is Galician noite, Spanish noche, Catalan nit, French nuit, Italian notte and Romanian noapte.^[9][1] The REW also places ontem “yesterday”, old Old Galician-Portuguese aontem, among the compounds of the Latin word, together with Spanish anoche “last night”.^[9]

The Latin word goes back to Proto-Italic *nok⁽ʷ⁾ts and Proto-Indo-European *nókʷts.^[1] De Vaan reconstructs a root noun with a nominative in *o and a genitive in *e, and lists among its cognates νύξ (núx), नक्त् (nákt) and naktìs.^[10][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss and Cunha date the word to the 13th century.^[2][3] The Cantigas de Santa Maria have noyt'e dia “night and day” and tell of a child who deu mui maa noite a sa madre “gave his mother a very bad night”, and a cantiga of Afonso X says of a man that he does nothing else nunca noite nen dia, “never by night nor by day”.^[11] Michaëlis's glossary of the Cancioneiro da Ajuda defines it as the counterpart of day.^[11]

Semantic evolution

Bluteau (1712) defines the night as the time the sun is below the horizon, and repeats the old derivation of noite “from harming” (Latin nocere), because it stops the eyes from seeing.^[12] Morais (1789) records prima noite “nightfall”, noite fechada “full night”, alta noite “late at night” and fazer noite “to spend the night somewhere”.^[13] The original Caldas Aulete adds the eve or vigil of a saint (noite de S. João), darkness, and the figurative senses “mystery” and “blindness”.^[14]

Figurative senses of sadness, ignorance and death are recorded in the modern dictionaries, and so is the sense “nightlife”.^[15][16][1] In popular Brazilian speech the night is also called caruca.^[17] The creoles have noiti and noti.^[1]

Timeline

• 13th century – first records, as noite and noyte.^[2][3]
• 13th century – the Cantigas de Santa Maria have noyt'e dia “night and day”.^[11]
• 14th century – the spellings nocte, noicte and noute.^[2][3]
• 1416 – noite in the Vida do Cativo Monge Confesso.^[18]
• 1569 – Cardoso glosses noite with Latin nox.^[19]
• 1712 – Bluteau defines the word and gives its derivation from “harming”.^[12]
• 1734 – Feijó gives noite and noute side by side.^[4]
• 1789 – Morais records prima noite, noite fechada and alta noite.^[13]
• 1881 – first record of noitada.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. night, the time between sunset and sunrise: No inverno as noites são compridas.^[2][17][1]
2. The evening, from sunset to about midnight: Jantamos às oito da noite.^[2][14][20]
3. The darkness of that time.^[17][15][16]
4. The night of a feast; the eve of a saint's day: a noite de São João.^[14][20]
5. (figurative) Sadness, suffering; ignorance; death.^[15][16]
6. nightlife: Ela adora a noite de Lisboa.^[1][16]

Word family

• anoitecer
• noitada
• noitecer
• noitibó
• anoitar
• meia-noite
• noitão
• noiteiro
• noitinha
• boa noite

Related words

• notívago
• noturnal
• noturno
• pernoitar
• ontem
• Latin nox
• Galician noite
• Spanish noche

Usage notes

The proverb de noite todos os gatos são pardos “at night all cats are grey” is recorded by Aurélio, and Wiktionary lists the form à noite todo gato é pardo.^[17][1] Boa noite is the greeting used in the evening and at night.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. noite
3. ^ a b c d e f Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. noite
4. ^ a b 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. noite
5. ^ 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. noite
6. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. noute
7. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. noite
8. ^ Williams, Edwin B. (1938), From Latin to Portuguese: Historical Phonology and Morphology of the Portuguese Language, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, p. § 92.7
9. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5973
10. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
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. noite
12. ^ 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. noite
13. ^ 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, 117
14. ^ a b c 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. noite
15. ^ a b c Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. noite
16. ^ a b c d Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 6538
17. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. noite
18. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. noite
19. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. noite
20. ^ a b 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. noite