monsieur

Etymology

It is borrowed from Middle French monsieur,^[2][3][4][5] literally "my lord",^[3][6][7] a compound of mon (“my”) and sieur (“lord”).^{[2][8][9][10]} The French title is recorded from 1297 as Old French monsor, for a man of slightly higher rank.^[2] Mon continues the accusative of Latin meus (“my”).^[10] Etymonline and Klein take sieur as a shortened form of seigneur;^[5][11] Barnhart and Hoad derive it from a reconstructed unstressed form Vulgar Latin *seiōrem, used before a name, from the accusative of senior (“elder”).^[4][8][10] It is thus related to sir, sire and monseigneur.^[8][12][13]

Earliest recorded meaning

A title put before the name of a French man, at first only of high rank: 1512, in the accounts of the Treasurer of Scotland.^[2][3] Barnhart's first record is in the poems of William Dunbar (1500–20),^[4] where the OED finds the sense "a Frenchman".^[2]

Semantic evolution

In French the word became a courtesy title for any man about 1480, and for the younger brothers of princes at the end of the 15th century;^[2] in English Monsieur was also the title of the second son or next younger brother of the King of France, from the 1550s.^[2][5] From 1598, in Love's Labour's Lost, it was used alone as a form of address.^[2] English speakers often used it humorously or with contempt: Johnson (1755) defined it as "a term of reproach for a Frenchman", quoting Cymbeline,^[14] and Monsieur stood for the French nation from 1673 to 1746.^[2] Its pronunciation varied: Johnson and the Imperial Dictionary (1850) stressed the first syllable, and Walker (1775) the second;^[2] the popular forms mounseer and mossoo reflect English pronunciations.^[2][13] Weekley noted that the abbreviation Mons., used by some English writers, is taken in France as a deliberate impertinence.^[13]

Timeline

• 1297 – Old French monsor, a title of deference.^[2]
• before 1513 – a Frenchman, in Dunbar.^[2][4]
• 1512 – a title before a French man's name.^[2][3]
• c. 1552 – the title of the King of France's second son or next brother.^[2]
• 1598 – a form of address, in Shakespeare.^[2]
• 1658 – Monsieur plum, a variety of plum (obsolete by 1860).^[2]
• 1673 – the French nation (obsolete by 1746).^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A title for a French or French-speaking man, used before his name, like English mister: Monsieur Lebrun will see you now.^[3][6][2]
2. A form of address to such a man, like English sir.^[6][2][15]
3. (historical) The title of the second son or next younger brother of the King of France.^[3][2]
4. (now rare) A Frenchman, especially one of rank.^[3][2][14]

Related words

• messieurs
• monseigneur
• sir
• sire
• senior
• seigneur

Usage notes

The plural is messieurs.^[6][3][15]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
7. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
8. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
11. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
12. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
13. ^ a b c Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
14. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
15. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press