poente

Forms

poente m or f (plural poentes)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin pōnēns (“setting, placing”), the present participle of pōnō (“to put, place”), written Old Galician-Portuguese poente in the oldest texts.^[2][3][1] Houaiss, the DLP and Priberam explain it as the participle of the Latin verb that became Portuguese pôr;^[2][4][5][6] Vieira derived it from the old form of that verb, poer.^[2][4][5][6] Wiktionary adds that, seen from modern Portuguese, the word is analysable as from Portuguese pôr + -ente.^[1]

The form Old Galician-Portuguese ponente, with the -n- of the Latin word, is recorded beside the modern form in the 15th century.^[7][8] Medieval Latin already used the participle for “west”, as in the Genoese annals for 1290, and Du Cange compares French ponant of the same meaning.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Galician-Portuguese Crónica Geral de Espanha of 1344, which places lands antre o poente e o meo dia “between the west and the south” and speaks of the sides do levante and do poente, of the east and the west.^[7] Houaiss dates both the noun “sunset” and the noun “west” to the 14th century, from Cunha's index of medieval Portuguese.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In the dictionaries the noun first means the west: Pereira (1697) glosses it with Latin occidens and occasus, and Bluteau (1712–1728) describes it as the western part of the world, where the sun sets, explaining the masculine gender by an understood sol.^[10][11] Morais (1789) defines it as the cardinal point where the sun sets.^[12] In 1813 Morais added a legal sense, “one who puts forward a proposition or asserts a fact”, quoting the Ordenações Afonsinas;^[13][6] Vieira repeats it.^[13][6] The adjective “that puts” is now marked as disused, while sol poente “the setting sun” and the noun “sunset” are current.^[14][15] In Brazil the noun also names the reddish glow left in the sky after nightfall.^[16]

Timeline

• 1344 – antre o poente e o meo dia in the Crónica Geral de Espanha.^[7]
• c. 1430 – poente in the Horto do Esposo (witness 1390–1437).^[17]
• 15th century – the variant ponente.^[7][8]
• 1697 – Pereira's Thesouro glosses poente with Latin occidens.^[10]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau defines it as the western part of the world.^[11]
• 1789 – Morais: the cardinal point where the sun sets.^[12]
• 1813 – Morais adds the legal sense “one who asserts a fact”.^[13]

Meanings

Adjective

1. (now rare) That puts or sets something.^[2][14][15]
2. Of the sun: setting, going down below the horizon: o sol poente.^[2][15][4]

Noun

1. The west, the part of the horizon where the sun sets; the ocidente: A casa tem janelas viradas a poente.^{[2][18][5][1]}
2. sunset, the end of the day: Ficámos na praia até ao poente.^{[2][4][15][1]}

Related words

• pôr
• ocidente
• Latin pōnō

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. poente
3. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. poente
4. ^ a b c d 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. poente
5. ^ a b c Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. poente
6. ^ a b c d 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, 824
7. ^ 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. poente
8. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. poente
9. ^ du Cange, Charles du Fresne, et al. (1883–1887), Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, augmented ed. by Léopold Favre, Niort: L. Favre, p. s.v. ponens
10. ^ a b 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. poente
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. poente
12. ^ 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, 211
13. ^ a b c Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 462
14. ^ a b 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. poente
15. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. poente
16. ^ Instituto da Lingua Galega, Tesouro do léxico patrimonial galego e portugués (TLPGP), Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, https://ilg.usc.gal/tesouro, p. s.v. poente
17. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. poente
18. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 7285