English
saudade
Saudade comes from Portuguese saudade ‘wistfulness, melancholy, nostalgia, yearning,…’, from Old Galician-Portuguese soydade ‘the feeling of missing something or someone’, and ultimately from Latin sōlus ‘alone’.
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEsōlus‘alone’
- Latin, derivedc. 75 BCE–200 CEsolitasas sōlitātem‘solitude’
- Old Galician-Portuguesec. 1100–1500soydade‘the feeling of missing something or someone’
- Portuguesec. 1500–presentsaudade‘wistfulness, melancholy, nostalgia, yearning, longing’
- Englishearliest quotation 2019same form
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed
Earlier history uncertain.
Lineage
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEsōlus‘alone’
- Latin, derivedc. 75 BCE–200 CEsolitasas sōlitātem‘solitude’
- Old Galician-Portuguesec. 1100–1500soydade‘the feeling of missing something or someone’
- Portuguesec. 1500–presentsaudade‘wistfulness, melancholy, nostalgia, yearning, longing’
- Englishearliest quotation 2019same form
Earliest quotation: 2019, Naty, Dear gringos, the Portuguese word “Saudade: “I have the feeling, from using the word as…”
Linked words
through Proto-Indo-European *swé ‘self’
such, self, suicide, idiot, sans, swain, idiocy, sere, 18 more
through Latin sōlus ‘alone’
solo, sole, solitude, desolate, desolation, sullen, solus, 3 more
through Latin solitas ‘solitude’
Today it means
noun A feeling of melancholy and wistful yearning for something that is absent, impossible or lost.
Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.
Etymograph / Latin sōlus / saudade