onde

Forms

onde (not comparable)^[1] Old forms: onde and ond' in the 13th century, o vnde in 1392, hõde in the 14th century, õde, omde and unde in the 15th.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin unde (“from where, whence”), written Old Galician-Portuguese onde in the oldest texts.^[2][3][1] In Vulgar Latin the word lost its sense of origin and took over that of ubi (“where”), which did not survive.^[2][4] Once onde meant “in which place”, the prepositions de and a were put before it, giving donde “from where” and aonde “to where”.^[2] Houaiss notes that all these forms, with ⟨adonde⟩, are found from the beginnings of the language.^[2]

The same Latin word is Galician onde, Italian onde, Romanian unde, Old French ont and Catalan on.^[5][1] The reinforced form Spanish donde replaced Old Spanish onde “whence”, and French dont comes from a Latin phrase with dē (“from”) in the same way.^[6][7]

Wiktionary takes the Latin adverb from an earlier *cunde, formed on quī (“which, what”) with a demonstrative suffix.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss and Cunha date the word to the 13th century.^[2][3] A Galician charter of 1253–1254 has onde polas prouanzas que eu ui “whereby, from the proofs I saw”, and later charters of the 1250s–1270s use it for “where”, “from where” and “of which”.^[8] The Crónica Troiana has the sense “where”: do lugar onde estauan “from the place where they were”.^[8]

Semantic evolution

In the medieval language onde meant both “where” and “whence”, and also “of which, of whom”, “with which” and “wherefore”.^[8][9] The 16th- and 17th-century dictionaries gloss it with Latin ubi “where”, and Barbosa (1611) quotes the proverb onde não vai dono não vai duelo.^[10][11] Bluteau (1712–1728) distinguishes onde without motion, Latin ubi, from onde with motion, Latin quo “whither”.^[12] Morais (1789) gives “in which place” and the interrogative “in what part?”.^[13]

In the Minho and in north-eastern Brazil the word also means “when, whereas”.^[14][15] Its use as a relative for things other than places, and for “to where”, is common but condemned by the grammars.^[1] The Macanese creole has úndi.^[1]

Timeline

• 13th century – first records, as onde and ond'.^[2][3]
• 1253–1254 – onde in a Galician charter.^[8]
• c. 1350 – onde in the Trasladação de São Nicolau (witness 1301–1400).^[16]
• 1392 – the spelling o vnde.^[2]
• 1569 – Cardoso glosses Onde with Latin ubi and ubinam.^[10]
• 1611 – Barbosa quotes proverbs with onde.^[11]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau distinguishes onde of rest from onde of motion.^[12]
• 1912 – Silva Bastos records the Minho sense “whereas”.^[14]

Meanings

Adverb

1. (interrogative) where? in what place?: Onde deixaste as chaves?^[2][17][1]
2. In the place where; wherever (onde quer que).^[2][17][1]
3. (colloquial, proscribed) To where, whither.^[1]
4. (north-eastern Brazil, regional Portugal) When, whereas.^[15]

Pronoun

1. (relative) In which, where: a cidade onde cresci.^[18][1]
2. (relative, proscribed) In which situation or case; whose.^[1]

Word family

• aonde
• donde

Related words

• Latin unde
• Galician onde

Usage notes

Houaiss observes that the boundary between onde, aonde and donde was never strictly kept, in the regions or in the history of the language; the distinction of onde for rest and aonde for motion is the work of the grammars.^[2] The phrase de onde em onde means “now and then” or “here and there”.^[2][15]

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 h i j k l Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. onde
3. ^ a b c Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. onde
4. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. onde
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 9062
6. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. donde
7. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. dont
8. ^ 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. onde
9. ^ 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. onde2
10. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. onde
11. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. onde
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. onde
13. ^ 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, 133
14. ^ a b Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. onde
15. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. onde
16. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. onde
17. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. onde
18. ^ 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. onde