People and family

Novo is glossed here as two things at once, and the pair is not something a reader can safely ignore. Set against an object it says what « new » says: uma casa nova is a house nobody has lived in. Set against a person it stops meaning that altogether and means young. Ele é mais novo do que eu is he is younger than me, never he is newer, and um homem novo is a young man rather than a new arrival. The practical weight of this sits in the comparison, because Portuguese runs the whole age scale through the same two words it keeps for objects: a filha mais velha is the elder daughter, uma irmã mais nova a younger sister, and o meu avô é muito velho says of a grandfather exactly what uma casa velha says of a house. English keeps « new » away from a person’s age completely and has « young », « younger » and « elder » standing ready, so nothing in the word itself warns you. Read novo off what it describes: a thing, and it is « new »; a person, and it is « young ».