Etymology: < Middle French ponent west (1240 in Old French; Middle French, French ponant (1549); the form ponent is now archaic or literary in this sense, and now regional in sense ‘west wind’ (1606)) < Old Occitan ponen west (c1300), west wind (late 12th cent.; also as ponent (14th cent. or earlier); Occitan ponent ), ultimately < uses as noun of present participle of classical Latin pōnere to put, place, set, lay down < po- , preverb ( < the same Indo-European base as Hittite pe- , Old Church Slavonic po- , Lithuanian pa- ) + sinere to put, place (see sited adj.). Compare post-classical Latin ponent-, ponens west, west wind, sunset, setting (late 13th cent. in an Italian source).In several Romance languages the descendants of the Latin verb acquired a specific sense ‘(of the sun or a star) to set’ (compare Catalan pondre (13th cent. in this sense, used reflexively), Spanish poner (mid 13th cent. or earlier in this sense, used reflexively), Italian porre (first half of the 14th cent. in this sense; now rare)), whence ultimately the Romance nouns in the sense ‘west’, which later were largely superseded by the various Romance phonological developments of the Germanic loan west n.¹ Compare Catalan ponent (noun) west (13th cent.), west wind (recorded in dictionaries from 1575, but probably much earlier), Spanish poniente (noun) west (second half of the 13th cent. or earlier; compare earlier †sol ponent in same sense, literally ‘setting sun’ (c1200 or earlier)), west wind (1275 or earlier; also †ponente (late 15th–mid 17th cent., after Latin and Italian)), Portuguese poente (noun) west (14th cent.), Italian ponente (noun) west (beginning of the 13th cent. or earlier), west wind (14th cent.), (adjective) situated in the west, westerly (first half of the 14th cent. or earlier in the phrase essere ponente to be situated in the west). Compare earlier Levant n.¹ With ponent wind at sense B. 1 compare Italian vento ponente west wind (first half of the 17th cent. or earlier), and also earlier ponente n.

Etymology: < post-classical Latin ponent-, ponens, use as adjective of present participle of classical Latin pōnere (see ponent n. and adj.¹). In ponent mode (compare quot. 1770) after post-classical Latin modus ponens (see modus ponens n., which is first attested later); compare tollent adj.