você

Forms

você m or f by sense (plural vocês)^[1] Older and colloquial forms recorded on the way from vossa mercê include vossemecê, vosmecê, vossancê, vassuncê, vancê, mecê, ocê and cê.^[1][2]

Etymology

It is a shortened form, from Portuguese vosmecê, itself from vossemecê, a contraction of the form of address vossa mercê “your grace”.^[2][3][4][1] The phrase is Old Galician-Portuguese vossa mercee, literally “your mercy”, whose noun is mercê “favour, grace”, from Latin mercēs (“wages, reward”), and whose possessive goes back to voster (“your (plural)”).^[1][5]

Nascentes describes the shortening as an “allegro form”, worn down by quick speech: used so often as a subject, the phrase no longer needed to be pronounced with care.^[6] He cites Cornu, Adolfo Coelho, Meyer-Lübke and Nunes for the same explanation.^[7] Houaiss records the intermediate forms vossancé (1665) and vossê (1721).^[2]

The equivalent Spanish usted comes in the same way from vuestra merced, and Catalan vostè is a parallel shortening.^[1][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Post Scriptum corpus of private letters has the form vose in a letter of 1638, dictated by a wool-carder held in a public jail;^[8][9] vossemecê already appears in a letter of 1593.^[8][9] Houaiss's first date is 1665, for the form of address “the person spoken or written to”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Vossa mercê was at first a ceremonious form of address, and Aurélio quotes it from a poem in the Cancioneiro Geral of Garcia de Resende.^[10] As it wore down to vossemecê it became the form used for people who had no title of lordship but were not addressed as tu.^[11] The old Caldas Aulete describes você as a common form used by a superior to anyone of the lower classes, which in Portugal had become a familiar address between people who are not intimate enough for tu; in Brazil, except Rio Grande do Sul and part of Santa Catarina, it simply took the place of tu.^[12] Silva Bastos (1912) likewise gives it as an address to someone of lower condition, or between people who esteem each other.^[13]

Aurélio notes that in parts of Portugal você still carries the respect of the original Vossa Mercê, while in Brazil it is the intimate address between equals or from a superior, and since about the middle of the 20th century also the address of children to parents and grandparents.^[4] In Rio Grande do Sul, where tu prevails, Schlee records that it was long accepted only from someone of higher standing to someone lower.^[14] A second, indefinite use (“anyone, one”) is recorded in Houaiss and Aulete.^[2][12]

The word passed into Ambonese Malay as ose.^[1]

Timeline

• 1593 – vossemecê in a private letter.^[9]
• 1638 – vose in a letter dictated by a prisoner.^[8]
• 1665 – Houaiss's first date for the pronoun, with the form vossancé.^[2]
• 1721 – the forms vossancê and vossê.^[2]
• 1813 – the spelling vosse.^[3]
• 1881 – the first Caldas Aulete describes the different use in Portugal and Brazil.^[12]
• 1912 – Silva Bastos derives it from vossemecê.^[13]

Meanings

Pronoun

1. you: the person spoken or written to, used with the verb in the third person: Você já jantou? In Brazil it is the ordinary address, familiar or polite; in Portugal it is used among equals who are not intimate, or to someone of lower standing.^{[2][15][12][1]}
2. (indefinite) one, anyone; a person not specified: Se você não regar as plantas, elas secam.^[2][12][1]

Related words

• vossa mercê
• vossemecê
• vosmecê
• mercê
• Spanish usted

Usage notes

The plural is vocês.^[1] The Aulete notes that in Brazil você is used between any two people, intimate or not, while in Portugal it is used within the family or by a superior to someone lower, never the other way round.^[12] Dialect records from Portugal also show it as a respectful address, as in Senhora mãe, você que me quer? “Mother, what do you want of me?”.^[16]

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 Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. você
3. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. você
4. ^ a b Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. você
5. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. mercê
6. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. você
7. ^ 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. 528
8. ^ a b c 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. você
9. ^ a b c 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. vossemecê
10. ^ Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. vossa mercê
11. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. vossemecê
12. ^ a b c d e f 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. você
13. ^ a b Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. você
14. ^ Schlee, Aldyr Garcia (2019), Dicionário da Cultura Pampeana Sul-Rio-Grandense, 2 vols., Pelotas: Fructos do Paiz, p. s.v. você
15. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. você
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. você