você

Portuguese

Pronunciation

• IPA: /voˈse/

Etymology

Contraction form of ancient Portuguese for title vossa mercê (literally "your mercy"), to archaic Portuguese vossemecê, to old Portuguese vosmecê. Compare with the Spanish usted (from vuestra merced, also literally "your mercy") and Catalan vosté.

Pronoun

você

1. (Portugal) you (singular, semi-formal)
2. (Brazil) you (singular, informal or semi-formal, depending on the region)
   • 2003, J. K. Rowling, Lya Wyler, Harry Potter e a Ordem da Fênix, Rocco, page 227:

     Pensei que você tivesse dito que ela estava só mandando você escrever!

     I thought that you have said that she was just ordering you to write!

Usage notes

• In Portugal and many parts of Brazil, "você" represents an intermediate degree of formality between tu (familiar) and o senhor (very formal) and should be used in situations of little intimacy.
• In some parts of Brazil (mainly the Southeast, with the exception of some cities), "você" has replaced tu as the informal second person singular pronoun. And tu is relegated to archaic, poetic and religious usages. In Rio, tu is used in very informal situations, but with the third-person singular of the verb.
• In informal occasions in Brazil, despite using "você" as the subjective and tonic subjective pronoun, the atone pronoun is te, from tu.
• Its plural form, vós, is rarely used in Brazilian Portuguese and is nowadays mostly confined to some northern dialects of European Portuguese.
• "Você" and vocês, although being 2nd person, should always take 3rd-person verbs.
• "Vc" (especially in online writing), cê (especially in informal talk) and ocê (almost exclusively used in the countryside) are alternative forms of "você" in Brazil.

Related terms

• tu
• vocês
• vós
• vc

See also

Portuguese personal pronouns (edit)
Number	Person	Subject (nominative case)	Objective (accusative case)	Prepositional (dative case)	com + indirect object (comitative case)
Singular	First	eu	me	mim	comigo
	Second	tu, você, o senhor, a senhora	te, você, o senhor, a senhora	ti, você, o senhor, a senhora	contigo
	Third	ele, ela	lhe, o, a, se	ele, ela, si	consigo
Plural	First	nós	nos	nós	conosco
	Second	vós, vocês, os senhores, as senhoras	vos, vocês, os senhores, as senhoras	vós, vocês, os senhores, as senhoras	convosco
	Third	eles, elas	lhes, os, as, se	eles, elas, si	com eles, com elas, consigo