outono

Forms

outono m (plural outonos)^[1] Houaiss records the Latinising spellings auptuno, autono and optuno in the 15th century and oitono in 1836.^[2] García de Diego lists atuno as old Portuguese, from Viterbo.^[3] The etymological spelling outomno is found in a letter of 1795 and in a text of 1900.^[4][5][1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin autumnus (“autumn”), written Old Galician-Portuguese outono in the oldest texts.^[2][6][7][1]

The same Latin word is Galician outono, Spanish otoño, Occitan auton, French automne, Italian autunno and Romanian toamnă.^[8][1] Corominas notes that besides Spanish it has lived on as a popular word only in Portuguese, Romansh and Romanian.^[9] The French word, by contrast, was borrowed from Latin in the 13th century.^[10]

The origin of the Latin word is unknown: Ernout and Meillet and others suppose it Etruscan, and de Vaan finds a foreign source conceivable, since no Proto-Indo-European word for autumn can be reconstructed.^[11] Wiktionary adds proposals from *h₃ewǵ- (“cold”) and *h₂sews- (“dry”), the earlier Latin spelling auctumnus and a possible influence of auctus (“increased”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Lorenzo's chronology has the word in a document of 1262: V dias d'outono and en tenpo d'outono “in autumn time”.^[12] Houaiss and Cunha date it to the 13th century.^[2][6]

Semantic evolution

Bluteau (1712–1728) describes it as the third season of the year, when the grapes are harvested and the latest fruits gathered.^[13] Houaiss keeps “harvest time” as a sense of its own, and the DLP, Porto Editora and Michaelis record the crops of the season, outonos in the plural.^{[2][14][15][16]}

The figurative “autumn of life”, the years before old age, is in Caldas Aulete's dictionary and in all the modern ones.^[17][2] In Trás-os-Montes the word is used for the second growth of grass in a meadow after the main mowing.^[18] Brazilian dictionaries define the season by the southern hemisphere, from the March equinox to the June solstice.^[19]

Timeline

• 1262 – en tenpo d'outono in a document.^[12]
• 15th century – the Latinising spellings auptuno, autono and optuno.^[2]
• 1542 – the adjective autunal (outonal).^[6]
• 1611 – Barbosa translates Outono as Latin autumnus.^[20]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau calls it the third season, of the vintage.^[13]
• 1795 – the spelling Outomno in a private letter.^[4]
• 1813 – outonal, outonar and outoniço are recorded.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. autumn, the season between summer and winter: in the southern hemisphere from March to June, in the northern from September to December.^[2][19][1]
2. The harvest season;^[2][15][16] (in the plural) the crops gathered or sown in autumn.^[2][15][16]
3. (figurative) The period of life approaching old age; decline: o outono da vida.^[2][16]

Word family

• outonar
• outoniço

Related words

• outonal
• Latin autumnus
• Galician outono
• Spanish otoño

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. outono
3. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. autumnus
4. ^ a b 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. outono
5. ^ NEHiLP – Núcleo de Apoio à Pesquisa em Etimologia e História da Língua Portuguesa, Universidade de São Paulo, DELPo: Dicionário Etimológico da Língua Portuguesa (online database), p. s.v. outono
6. ^ a b c d Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. outono
7. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. outono
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 813
9. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 322
10. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. automne
11. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
12. ^ a b 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. outono
13. ^ 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. outono
14. ^ 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. outono
15. ^ a b c Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 6782
16. ^ a b c d 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. outono
17. ^ 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. outono
18. ^ Wikcionário (Portuguese Wiktionary), pt.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. outono
19. ^ a b Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. outono
20. ^ Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. outono