você

See also: voce, voće, -voce, and Voce

Portuguese

Etymology

Syncope of vosmecê, elision of vossemecê, contraction of Old Galician-Portuguese vossa mercee (literally “your mercy”) (today's mercê) from Latin vostra + mercēs. Compare with Spanish usted (from vuestra merced (literally “your mercy”)) and Catalan vostè.

Pronunciation

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /voˈse/

 

• (Portugal) IPA^(key): /vɔˈse/

• (Portugal) IPA^(key): /vɔˈse/
  • (Northern Portugal) IPA^(key): /bɔˈse/

• (informal Brazil) IPA^(key): /se/
  • Homophones: cê, sê
  • Homophone: ser (with -r dropping)
• Rhymes: -e
• Hyphenation: vo‧cê

Pronoun

você m or f by sense (plural vocês)

2. (formal, semi-formal, or offensive in Portugal, informal or formal in Brazil) second-person singular personal pronoun; you

   Synonyms: o senhor, tu

   • 2003, J. K. Rowling, Lia 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 had said that she was just ordering you to write!

4. indefinite pronoun; you; one

   Você pode levar um cavalo até a água, mas não pode fazê-lo beber.

   You can take a horse to the water, but you can’t make it drink.

Usage notes

• In Portugal and some parts of Brazil, você represents an intermediate degree of formality between tu (familiar) and o senhor (very formal). It should be used in situations of little intimacy, but almost always omitted, otherwise it might be taken as being offensive or demeaning. There is no perfect analog in Portuguese to the Spanish usted, whose role is filled by o senhor in Brazil and o senhor and você in Portugal.
• In most parts of Brazil (especially in 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, much like the English thou. In Rio de Janeiro, Santa Catarina, Brasília and most Northeastern States, tu is used in very informal situations, though it usually uses the third-person singular conjugation of verbs, similar to many Spanish-speaking countries with voseo.
• teu, te, and to a lesser extent ti and contigo, are widely used alongside você in Brazilian dialects that don’t use tu.
• Its plural form, vós, is rarely used in general Portuguese and is now mostly confined to some of the northernmost rural dialects of European Portuguese and poetry.
• Você and vocês, despite being 2nd-person pronouns, always take 3rd-person verbs.

Quotations

For quotations using this term, see Citations:você.

Alternative forms

• vossa mercê (archaic)
• vossemecê (archaic)
• vosmecê (archaic, rural areas of Brazil)
• voncê (archaic, rural areas of Brazil)
• sossemecê (obsolete)
• mecê (rural areas of Brazil)
• vancê (rural areas of Brazil)
• vacê (rural areas of Brazil)
• vossuncê (rural areas of Brazil)
• vassuncê (rural areas of Brazil)
• suncê (rural areas of Brazil)
• ocê (eye dialect, rural areas of Brazil)
• cê (slang, Brazil)
• vc (spelling Internet slang, Brazil)
• se (spelling Internet slang, Brazil)

Synonyms

• (indefinite pronoun): reflexive third-person pronouns (se, si, consigo)

See also

Portuguese personal pronouns (edit)
Number	Person	Nominative (subject)		Accusative (direct object)		Dative (indirect object)	Prepositional		Prepositional with com		Non-declining
		m	f	m	f	m and f	m	f	m	f	m	f
Singular	First	eu		me			mim		comigo
	Second	tu		te			ti		contigo		você
											o senhor	a senhora
	Third	ele	ela	o (lo, no)	a (la, na)	lhe	ele	ela	com ele	com ela	o mesmo	a mesma
				se			si		consigo
Plural	First	nós		nos			nós		connosco (Portugal) conosco (Brazil)		a gente
	Second	vós		vos			vós		convosco, com vós		vocês
											os senhores	as senhoras
	Third	eles	elas	os (los, nos)	as (las, nas)	lhes	eles	elas	com eles	com elas	os mesmos	as mesmas
				se			si		consigo
Indefinite				se			si		consigo