sans

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English sauns, also saun and saunz,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Old French sans, earlier sen and senz, meaning without, except, apart from.^[5][3][2][4] Some of the French forms carry an adverbial -s.^[2][6] The Anglo-Norman preposition is recorded from 1113–19.^[7] The French word continues Vulgar Latin *sene, for classical Latin sine (“without”),^[5][2][4][6] and is cognate with Old Occitan senes, Old Spanish sen (modern Spanish sin), Portuguese sem and Old Italian sen.^[5][2] Several dictionaries add that the French form was influenced by, or partly blended with, absentiā (“in the absence of”), the ablative of the Latin noun for absence;^{[8][9][10][11][12][13][3]} the American Heritage Dictionary traces that noun to absēns, the present participle of absum (“to be away”).^[8] Etymonline takes the Latin preposition as an enlarged form of sē (“without”), from Proto-Indo-European *sen(e)- (“apart, separated”), the root of sunder;^[2][3] Skeat and Weekley analysed it as si (“if”) and ne (“not”), "if not, except".^[14][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Without: about 1300, in Kyng Alisaunder.^[5] Etymonline notes that the word appears in surnames from the mid-12th century.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Weekley describes the word as fully naturalized from the 14th to the 16th century, in forms such as saun and saunce;^[6] Chaucer used it in sauns faille, without fail, and Gower in the form sanz.^[15] It then fell out of ordinary use: Johnson (1755) labelled it "out of use" and quoted Jaques's speech in As You Like It, "Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing".^[16] Its later use is mostly an echo of that passage,^[4][6][5] and the Century Dictionary (1891), quoted by Etymonline, called it a French word that had long existed in English without being naturalized, archaic or affected except in heraldry.^[2] The OED now labels it archaic, jocular and heraldic.^[5] Following French, Evelyn used it in 1659 for "with the exception of", a sense that did not last.^[5] Carlyle coined jocular compounds such as sans-breech in 1837, after sans-culotte.^[5] As a noun, sans is a shortening of sans serif in typography, recorded from 1927 in the OED;^[5][2][13] Merriam-Webster dates it to about 1909.^[3]

Timeline

• mid-12th century – in surnames.^[2]
• c. 1300 – preposition, without.^[5]
• 1659 – with the exception of (obsolete).^[5]
• 1755 – Johnson calls the word out of use.^[16]
• 1837 – jocular compounds such as sans-breech.^[5]
• c. 1909 – noun, sans serif.^[3]
• 1927 – noun, sans serif, especially in the names of typefaces.^[5]

Meanings

Preposition

1. (archaic or humorous) without: He came to the party sans tie and sans jacket.^{[9][5][3][13]}
2. (heraldry) without.^[5][13]

Noun

1. (typography) A sans serif typeface.^[3][5][13]

Related words

• sans doute
• sans-culotte
• sine
• senza
• absence
• sunder
• sans serif

Usage notes

Several French phrases with sans are used in English: sans cérémonie (without ceremony), sans pareil (unequalled), sans phrase (without further words) and sans peur et sans reproche (fearless and blameless).^[13] Weekley notes that the last was first applied to the knight Bayard, and that sans phrase comes from la mort sans phrase, attributed to Sieyès voting for the death of Louis XVI.^[6] Sans Souci, "without care", was the name of Frederick the Great's palace at Potsdam.^[2][6]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
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 Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
7. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
8. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
10. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
11. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
12. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
15. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
16. ^ 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.