ponte

Forms

ponte f (plural pontes)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote ponte and põte;^[2][3] Houaiss records both in the 15th century.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin pōns (“bridge”), written Old Galician-Portuguese ponte in the oldest texts.^[3][4][5][2] The Latin word is masculine, and the Portuguese one became feminine.^[3][5] Nascentes and the DDGM point out that a 9th-century document already has the feminine illa ponte.^[6][2] The DCECH notes that the word is feminine only in Spanish, Portuguese and an Alpine area around the Grisons.^[7]

The same Latin word is Galician ponte, Spanish puente, Catalan pont, French pont, Italian ponte and Romanian punte.^[8][5]

The Latin word goes back to *ponts and to the PIE word for “road”, which de Vaan reconstructs as Proto-Indo-European *pónth₁s.^[9][10] Its cognates are पन्था (pánthā-, “road, path”), πάτος (pátos, “path”) and πόντος (póntos, “sea”), and пѫть (pǫtĭ, “road”).^[9][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Lorenzo's chronology in the DDGM gives della ponte a suso “from the bridge upwards” in a document of 1254, and the place name da Ponte Uella in a Galician document of 1268.^[2] One of the Cantigas de Santa Maria tells of a child who fell dũa muit'alta ponte “from a very high bridge”, and the Crónica Troiana of a bridge that could be lowered and raised.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Barbosa (1611) has ponte levadiça “drawbridge”, and Morais (1789) adds the deck of a ship and a part of the sugar mill that holds the rollers.^[11][12] Modern technical senses include the pons of the brain, the bridge circuit of electricity, the dental bridge, the ship's bridge, the goalkeeper's dive and a gymnastic position.^[3][13]

In Portugal fazer ponte is to take off a working day that falls between a holiday and a weekend.^[5][14] In Brazil a ponte aérea is a frequent air shuttle between two cities.^[3] Macanese has the word as pónti.^[5]

Timeline

• 9th century – the feminine illa ponte in a Latin document.^[2][6]
• 1254 – della ponte a suso in a document.^[2]
• 1268 – the place name Ponte Uella in a Galician document.^[2]
• 13th century – first records according to Houaiss and Cunha;^[3][4][2] dũa muit'alta ponte in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[3][4][2]
• 1344 – o arco da ponte in the Crónica Geral.^[2]
• 1431–1446 – first record in the CTA corpus, in the Visão de Túndalo.^[15]
• 1611 – Barbosa lists ponte levadiça.^[11]
• 1789 – Morais adds the nautical sense “deck”.^[12]
• 1813 – first record of the diminutive pontícula.^[4]
• 1844 – first record of the diminutive pontilhão.^[4][16]

Meanings

Noun

1. A bridge over a river, valley or other gap.^[3][5][13]
2. Any structure joining two corresponding parts.^[3][17]
3. (figurative) A link between people or things.^[3][5][14]
4. (anatomy) The pons, the part of the brainstem joining the two halves of the brain.^[3][13]
5. (electricity) A bridge circuit used for measuring.^[3][17]
6. (football) A goalkeeper's leap, almost horizontal, to save a shot.^[3]
7. (gymnastics) A position with the body arched backwards, resting on hands and feet.^[3][14]
8. (nautical) The ship's bridge; formerly each deck of a ship.^[3][18]
9. (dentistry) A dental bridge replacing one or more teeth.^[3][18]
10. (Portugal) A working day between a holiday and a weekend that people take off.^[5][14]

Word family

• pontícula
• pontilhão

Related words

• pontão
• pontífice
• Latin pons
• Galician ponte
• Spanish puente

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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. ponte
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. ponte
4. ^ a b c d e Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. ponte
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. ponte
6. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 410
7. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 674
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6649
9. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. pons
11. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. ponte
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, 216
13. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. ponte
14. ^ a b c d Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 7334
15. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. ponte
16. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. pontilhão
17. ^ 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. ponte
18. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. ponte