ontem

Forms

ontem (not comparable)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote oonte;^[2][3] Houaiss records ontem and otem in 1391 and omtem in the 15th century.^[2][3] Barbosa (1611) and Pereira (1697) head the word hontem and refer ontem to it, and Houaiss's first hontem is of 1713.^[4][5][3] Silva Bastos (1912) calls hontem the commoner spelling, but notes that the official spelling reform of 1911 made it ontem.^[6]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin ad noctem (“at night, towards night”), the phrase of ad (“to, towards”) and nox (“night”), written Old Galician-Portuguese oonte in the oldest texts.^[3][2][7][1] The phrase meant “last night” and so “on the day that ended with last night”, as Nascentes explains it, and he compares amanhã, made in the same way.^[7] The DLP starts instead from a longer phrase with heri (“yesterday”) in front, “yesterday at night”.^[8] The cantigas still have Old Galician-Portuguese eire “yesterday”, the old word inherited from that Latin adverb, which the new word displaced.^[9][1]

Houaiss quotes Nascentes's account of the sound changes: *anoite became *ãoite when the first vowel was nasalised, then *õoite by assimilation and *õote when the semivowel was absorbed; contraction gave onte, still a popular form, and the nasal was at last drawn out at the end of the word.^[3][7] Wiktionary gives the same chain through the first two stages.^[1]

The same Latin phrase gave Galician onte “yesterday”, while Spanish anoche, Asturian anueiti and Old French anuit kept the sense of the night itself.^[10][11][1] The Latin preposition goes back to *ad and *h₂éd (“near, at”), the source of the English word at too.^[12][1] The Latin noun is from *nokʷts, from *nókʷts, and is cognate with νύξ (núx) and the English word night.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The oldest record that Lorenzo's chronology gives is a cantiga d'escarnho of Pero Garcia Burgales, which tells of something done oonte ao serão “yesterday in the evening”.^[13] Cunha dates oonte to the 13th century;^[2][3] Houaiss's first dated record is of 1391, with the spellings ontem and otem, already in the sense “on the day before today”.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

Beside “on the day before today”, Houaiss records the extended senses “at some earlier, unspecified time” and “only a short while ago”, and the use as a masculine noun, o ontem, for the day before and for the past.^[3] Bluteau (1712–1728) already lists phrases such as ontem pela manhãa “yesterday morning” and ontem de noyte “last night”.^[14]

Set phrases include antes de ontem “the day before yesterday”, also written as one word, anteontem;^[3][15] de ontem para hoje “overnight, in a rush, all of a sudden”; and para ontem “with the utmost urgency”.^[3][15] The original Caldas Aulete records ser nascido ontem “to be young and inexperienced”, and Porto Editora olhar para ontem “to be lost in thought”.^[16][17]

The word passed into the creoles: Kabuverdianu has ónti and Macanese onte.^[1]

Timeline

• 13th century – Cunha's date for the old form oonte.^[2]
• 1391 – Houaiss's first dated record, spelt ontem and otem.^[3]
• 15th century – the spelling omtem.^[3]
• 1544 – ontẽ in a private letter.^[18]
• 1569 – Cardoso's dictionary translates ontem as Latin heri.^[19]
• 1611 – Barbosa refers ontem to hontem, under the letter H.^[4]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau heads the word ontem and lists phrases such as ontem de noyte.^[14]
• 1713 – Houaiss's first hontem.^[3]
• 1789 – Morais defines the adverb as “on the day before the one in which one speaks”.^[20]
• 1911 – the official spelling reform makes hontem into ontem, as Silva Bastos notes.^[6]

Meanings

Adverb

1. yesterday, on the day before today: Ontem choveu a tarde inteira.^[3][21][1]
2. At some earlier, unspecified time; in the past, formerly.^[3][21][17]
3. Only a short while ago, very recently.^[3][22]

Noun

1. The day before today: as notícias de ontem.^[3][21][1]
2. (figurative) The past, time gone by.^[3][8][1]

Word family

• anteontem

Related words

• noite
• Latin nox
• Galician onte

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. ontem
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. ontem
4. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. ontem
5. ^ 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. ontem
6. ^ a b Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. ontem
7. ^ a b c Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. ontem
8. ^ 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. ontem
9. ^ 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. eire
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5973
11. ^ 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. anoche
12. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
13. ^ 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. oonte
14. ^ 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. ontem
15. ^ a b Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. ontem
16. ^ 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. ontem
17. ^ a b Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 6692
18. ^ 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. ontem
19. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. ontem
20. ^ 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, 134
21. ^ a b c Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. ontem
22. ^ 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. ontem