teu

Forms

teu (feminine tua, masculine plural teus, feminine plural tuas)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin tuus (“your, yours”), reshaped after meu.^[2][3][4] Wiktionary and Nascentes give an older form Old Galician-Portuguese tou, which the influence of the first-person possessive turned into the modern form.^[1][3] The DDGM's glossary of a medieval chronicle treats both this word and seu as analogical forms modelled on the first person.^[5] The feminine tua keeps the Latin form, and the medieval language also had an unstressed form Old Galician-Portuguese ta before a noun, as in the cantigas of Alfonso X: ⟨na ta gran mercee⟩, “in your great mercy”.^[2][5]

The same Latin word is Spanish tuyo, Catalan teu, French ton, Italian tuo and Romanian tău.^[6] It goes back to Proto-Italic *towos.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss dates the possessive to the 13th century.^[2] The Cantigas de Santa Maria use per rogos teus “at your prayers”, os teus servos “your servants” and este don teu “this gift of yours”, beside ta and tua.^[5] The Crónica Troiana has mays cõ o teu amor bem sey que defendido seras “but with your love I know well that you will be protected”.^[5]

Semantic evolution

Houaiss records the plural spellings teos and teuos in the 14th century.^[2] Feijó (1734) writes teu and teus by strict derivation, but notes that têos was often used in the plural, like meôs and seôs.^[7] Bluteau already describes o teu as a noun, “your property, your goods”.^[8]

The possessive has a range of uses: what belongs to the person addressed, what they prefer, what is due to them, and, with numbers of years, an approximate age (estarás com os teus setenta anos).^[2][9] In the plural, os teus are one's family or friends.^[2][10] In Brazil Wiktionary labels some of its uses archaic or religious, like English thy and thine.^[1]

Timeline

• 13th century – os teus servos and na ta gran mercee in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[5][2]
• 14th century – the plural spellings teos and teuos.^[2]
• c. 1400 – first occurrence in the CTA corpus, in a fragment of the Flos Sanctorum (witness 1380–1425).^[11]
• 1697 – Pereira renders teu, ou tua with Latin tuus.^[12]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau records o teu as a noun.^[8]
• 1734 – Feijó discusses the plural têos.^[7]

Meanings

Determiner

1. your (of one person addressed as tu): belonging to, felt by or caused by you: o teu irmão.^[2][10][1]
2. That you prefer; your favourite: o teu romancista.^[2][9]
3. That falls to you or is due to you: a tua parte do bolo.^[2][13]
4. (with numbers of years) About, roughly: os teus quarenta anos.^[2][9]
5. (Brazil, archaic or religious) thy.^[1]

Pronoun

1. yours: Este livro é teu.^[2][1]
2. (as a noun, o teu) What is yours;^[2][10][1] (os teus) your family, relatives or friends.^[2][10][1]

Related words

• tu
• te
• ti
• meu
• seu
• Latin tuus

Usage notes

Wiktionary records Teu with a capital for God, and a slang interjection teu! “hey!, mate” in Rio Grande do Sul, formed on meu “dude” after the pairs eu/meu and tu/teu.^[1] Michaelis also enters a separate noun teu, a Chinese measure of capacity of about seven litres.^[13]

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 g h i j k l m n o Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. teu
3. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. teu
4. ^ Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. teu
5. ^ a b c d e 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. teu
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 9020
7. ^ a b Feijó, João de Morais Madureira (1734), Orthographia, ou Arte de escrever, e pronunciar com acerto a lingua portugueza, Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. teu
8. ^ 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. teu
9. ^ a b c 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. teu
10. ^ a b c d Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. teu
11. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. teu
12. ^ 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. teu
13. ^ 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. teu