oeste

Forms

oeste m (plural oestes)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French ouest, which was first written west (1138 in Houaiss, 1140 in the DHLF) and is from Old English west.^[2][3][1][4] Nascentes and Aurélio also derive it from Anglo-Saxon through French, the Porto dictionary from English through French, while Michaelis names only the Anglo-Saxon word.^[5][6][7][8] Diez had looked for its source in Norse or Dutch.^[9] Wiktionary notes that the vowel of French est “east” shows that the French compass names came from English rather than from Dutch or Norse.^[1]

The Old English word was an adverb from the 9th century and a noun from the 12th, and it is the English word west.^[4][2] Houaiss and the DHLF connect it with Proto-Indo-European *wes-, the base of Ancient Greek ἕσπερος (hésperos, “of the evening, western”) and Latin vesper (“evening”).^[2][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Cunha finds the word from the 15th century on, in the compounds nor oeste and sud ueste, and Houaiss dates it to the same century; in its own article Cunha dates noroeste to the 14th.^[3][2][10] In the dictionaries Bluteau defines oeste first as the west wind and only “sometimes” as the cardinal point where the sun sets.^[11]

Semantic evolution

Folqman (1755) and Morais (1813) still give only the wind, with the compass names Oeste Noroeste and Oeste quarta de Noroeste between west and north-west.^[12][13] Vieira (1871) puts the point of the sky opposite the east first, then the wind and the place of sunset.^[14] Today the first sense is the cardinal point, followed by the region lying in that direction, written with a capital, and the wind.^[2][15] It is also used as an adjective: a costa oeste.^[2][8]

Timeline

• 15th century – first recorded in the compounds noroeste and sudueste.^[3][2]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau defines it as the west wind and the cardinal point.^[11]
• 1755 – Folqman gives only the west wind.^[12]
• 1794 – Oeste in a private letter.^[16]
• 1813 – Morais defines it as the west wind.^[13]
• 1871 – Vieira derives it from French ouest and gives the point of the sky first.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. west: the cardinal point and direction in which the sun and stars set, to the left of someone facing north (symbol O or W); ocidente, poente.^[2][6][7]
2. (with a capital) The region or regions lying to the west.^[2][6]
3. (meteorology) The west wind.^[2][17]

Adjective

1. Of, in or from the west: o lado oeste da casa.^[2][15][8]

Related words

• noroeste
• sudoeste
• leste
• ocidente
• poente
• French ouest
• English west

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. oeste
3. ^ a b c Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. oeste
4. ^ a b c Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. ouest
5. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. oeste
6. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. oeste
7. ^ a b Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 6640
8. ^ a b c 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. oeste
9. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 361
10. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. noroeste
11. ^ 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. oeste
12. ^ a b Folqman, Carlos (1755), Diccionario portuguez, e latino, Lisboa: Régia Officina Silviana (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. oeste
13. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 360
14. ^ a b Vieira, Frei Domingos (1871–1874), Grande Diccionario Portuguez ou Thesouro da lingua portugueza, 5 vols., Porto: Ernesto Chardron e Bartholomeu H. de Moraes, p. 4, 528
15. ^ 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. oeste
16. ^ 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. oeste
17. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. oeste