todo

Forms

todo (feminine toda, masculine plural todos, feminine plural todas)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese elided it before a vowel (tod' ome "every man", tod' esto "all this"), and before the plural article the plural lost its -s while the article kept its old form: todolos, todalas.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin tōtus (“whole, entire”), written Old Galician-Portuguese todo in the oldest texts.^[3][4][5][1] The same Latin word is Galician todo, Spanish todo, Catalan tot, French tout, Italian tutto, Sardinian tottu and Romanian tot.^[6][1] Only Spanish and Portuguese continue the classical form with a single ⟨t⟩, which they write ⟨d⟩; the other languages go back to an emphatic Vulgar Latin *tōttus, whose doubled consonant was already censured by the grammarian Consentius.^[7][8][6]

In popular Latin the word for "the whole of" took over the sense of Latin omnis (“every, all”) and in the end replaced it, while keeping its own.^[9][5][7] The neuter pronoun tudo "everything" is the same word with a raised vowel, perhaps under the influence of muito, as the Galician variant tuido suggests; it is still rare in the cancioneiros, where the word standing alone means "everything".^[2]

The origin of the Latin word is unclear.^[10][1] De Vaan finds none of the proposals convincing, neither a participle meaning "stuffed" nor Zimmer's compound meaning "standing close by, complete".^[10] Wiktionary mentions a possible link with 𐌕𐌏𐌕𐌀𐌌 (totam, “tribe”) and Proto-Italic *toutā (“people”), from Proto-Indo-European *tewtéh₂ (“people”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss and Cunha date the word to the 13th century, as adjective, pronoun and adverb.^[3][4] The Cancioneiro da Ajuda has it as "complete, whole" (todo ben "all good"), with plurals such as todas as gentes "all the peoples", and as "every, any" in tod' ome "every man".^[2] The CTA's first record is in the Trasladação de S. Nicolau, in a 14th-century witness.^[11]

Semantic evolution

The medieval language already had the adverb "wholly, quite" and the phrase de todo "completely", both from the 13th century; the use of todo alone for "everything" is dated to the 14th century and is now archaic, replaced by tudo.^[3][12]

Morais (1813) notes that in the sense "every" the classical writers mostly left out the article (todo homem), which in his time was usually added (toda a pessoa).^[13] Morais (1789) records the noun hum todo "a whole" and ao todo "in all".^[14] Today the article distinguishes "whole" (todo o dia) from "every" (todo dia), as in Michaelis's Brazilian usage; in the plural the article is required.^[15][16] The adverb passed into Kabuverdianu and Guinea-Bissau Creole as tudu and tudu.^[1]

Timeline

• 1200s – first records, as adjective, pronoun and adverb, and de todo.^[3][4]
• 1300s – todo alone in the sense "everything".^[3]
• 1350 – the CTA's first record, in the Trasladação de S. Nicolau.^[11]
• 1755 – Folqman separates todo "whole" (Latin totus) from todo said of many things (omnis).^[17]
• 1789 – Morais enters the noun todo and ao todo.^[14]
• 1813 – Morais comments on the use of the article after todo.^[13]

Meanings

Determiner

1. whole, entire, with nothing left out (with the article, or after the noun): Choveu a semana toda.^[3][15][1]
2. every, any (in the singular, in Brazil usually without the article): Todo aluno recebe um livro.^[3][15][1]

Pronoun

1. todos, todas (plural): everyone, all the people: Todos riram.^[3][18]
2. (archaic) Everything, tudo.^[3][12]

Adverb

1. Completely, wholly, agreeing with the word it modifies: A roupa ficou toda molhada.^[3][15][1]

Noun

1. A whole, a complete set of parts; the totality: as partes e o todo.^[3][19][1]

Related words

• tudo
• Latin tōtus
• Galician todo

Usage notes

Fixed phrases include ao todo "in all", de todo "completely", a toda "at full speed" and the Brazilian informal estar em todas "to be involved in everything".^[3][16] The DLP also records a separate noun todo, from scientific Latin, for a small green bird of Central America.^[19]

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 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. todo
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. todo
4. ^ a b c Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. todo
5. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. todo
6. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 8815
7. ^ a b Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 528
8. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. tout
9. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 497
10. ^ 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, p. s.v. tōtus
11. ^ a b Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. todo
12. ^ a b Lopes, Graça Videira; Ferreira, Manuel Pedro et al. (2011–), Cantigas Medievais Galego-Portuguesas [online database], Lisboa: Instituto de Estudos Medievais, FCSH/NOVA, https://cantigas.fcsh.unl.pt, p. s.v. todo
13. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 2, 780
14. ^ 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, 463
15. ^ 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. todo
16. ^ 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. todo
17. ^ Folqman, Carlos (1755), Diccionario portuguez, e latino, Lisboa: Régia Officina Silviana (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. todo
18. ^ Schlee, Aldyr Garcia (2019), Dicionário da Cultura Pampeana Sul-Rio-Grandense, 2 vols., Pelotas: Fructos do Paiz, p. s.v. todo
19. ^ a b 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. todo