quão

Forms

quão (not comparable)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote quan, and the 14th and 15th centuries also quã, quam, quaõ and cam.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin quam (“how; to what degree”), written Old Galician-Portuguese quan in the oldest texts.^[2][3][4][1] The Latin final ⟨-am⟩ became the nasal diphthong written ⟨ão⟩, through the medieval spellings Old Galician-Portuguese quã and Old Galician-Portuguese quaõ.^[2]

The same Latin word is Spanish cuan, Old Occitan can and Romanian ca, and Old Spanish and Old Portuguese also had a form Old Galician-Portuguese ca.^[5][6] Galician ca still serves as the comparative “than”.^[7]

In Latin the word is the accusative singular feminine of the relative and interrogative stem of quis (“who”), the same as Oscan pan.^[8] Wiktionary traces it to Proto-Indo-European *kʷeh₂m, the accusative of the feminine of *kʷos.^[1] Used with tam (“so”), it marked equality, and after a comparative it came to mean “than”.^[9][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss dates the adverb to the 13th century from Cunha's index of medieval Portuguese.^[2] The Cantigas de Santa Maria use quan before adjectives and adverbs in the sense “how (much)”: quan gran arteria / fez per antollança “what a great trick he played with his illusion”.^[10] The Cancioneiro da Ajuda has it in the same sense.^[10]

Semantic evolution

In the medieval language quan was both exclamative (“how!”) and correlative, and it formed phrases such as quan muito “as much as” and quan pouco xiquer “the least bit”.^[10][11] Morais (1789) describes it as the relative of tão “so” and quotes quão azinha “how quickly” from Camões.^[12] The old Aulete quotes Camões and Herculano for both uses.^[13]

Today it is used mostly in exclamations before an adjective, to stress a quality or degree.^[14][2] Houaiss labels the correlative tão … quão “as … as” formal.^[2][15]

Timeline

• 13th century – first record, as quan.^[2][3]
• 14th century – the spellings quã, quam and cam appear.^[2][3]
• 15th century – the spelling quaõ.^[2]
• 1541 – quão in a private letter, the earliest in Post Scriptum.^[16]
• 1789 – Morais defines it as the relative of tão.^[12]

Meanings

Adverb

1. how, to what degree, before an adjective or adverb, mostly in exclamations: Quão longe ficou a aldeia!^[2][17][1]
2. (formal) As, in the comparison tão … quão “as … as”: uma tarefa tão longa quão difícil.^[2][15][1]

Related words

• quanto
• Latin quam
• Spanish cuan

Usage notes

The word is the correlative of tão: in the old Aulete it is defined as such, and Silva Bastos's dictionary of 1912 says the same.^[13][18]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. quão
3. ^ a b c d Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. quão
4. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. quão
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. quam
6. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. quam
7. ^ Estraviz, Isaac Alonso, Dicionário Estraviz, https://estraviz.org, p. s.v. ca
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. quam
9. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. quam
10. ^ a b c 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. quan
11. ^ 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. quan
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, 269
13. ^ a b 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. quão
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. quão
15. ^ 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. quão
16. ^ 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. quão
17. ^ Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. quão
18. ^ Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. quão