gourmand

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English gourmant, also gourmaunt,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Old French gormant (“glutton”),^[2][3][5][6] which Barnhart and Merriam-Webster Unabridged give as Middle French gourmant.^[4][7] The modern spelling matches French gourmand.^[8][9] The French word was first an adjective, "gluttonous",^[3][4] and its origin is uncertain or unknown.^{[8][10][4][6][3][11][12]} Weekley reports that some connected it with gourmet and so with Old French gromet (“lad, taverner's assistant”) and groom, but he saw difficulties of sense and date;^[13] Barnhart, Klein and Etymonline keep it apart from gourmet.^[4][14][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

A person who eats greedily or too much, a glutton: before 1492, in Caxton's translation of Vitas Patrum.^[8] Barnhart dates gourmaunt to 1450,^[4][15] Dictionary.com to 1400–50,^[5] and Etymonline to the late 15th century.^[3]

Semantic evolution

For its first centuries in English the word meant a glutton, also in a figurative use between 1537 and 1687.^[8] A verb "to eat greedily", from French gourmander, is recorded from before 1450 to 1548.^[8] The kinder sense, a person fond of delicate food and a judge of it, is first recorded in 1758, in a letter of Lord Chesterfield.^{[8][3][10][9]} Barnhart treats the form and meaning of gourmet as modern developments, probably influenced by gourmand.^[4] Dictionaries still give both senses, so the word can praise or blame.^[7][9][6]

Timeline

• before 1450 – verb, to eat greedily (obsolete by 1548).^[8]
• before 1492 – noun, a glutton.^[8]
• 1537 – in a figurative use (obsolete by 1687).^[8]
• 1557 – adjective, gluttonous, in North's Diall of Princes.^[8]
• 1758 – a person fond of delicate food, a judge of good eating.^[8][3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A person too fond of eating and drinking; a glutton: The old gourmand finished the whole pie and asked for cheese.^[6][7][8]
2. A person who loves good food; a gourmet.^[7][9][8]

Adjective

1. Fond of eating, gluttonous; especially, fond of rich or dainty food.^[7][8][9]

Word family

• gourmandism
• gourmandise

Related words

• gourmet
• gormandize

Usage notes

Brewer (1898), quoted by Etymonline, set the two words apart: "a gourmand regards quantity more than quality, a gourmet quality more than quantity".^[3] A variant spelling is gormand.^[6][7][5]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
7. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
14. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
15. ^ Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins