Etymologically
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épître

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Pronunciation

  • IPA: /e.pitʁ/[1]

Forms

épître f (plural épîtres)[1] Old French epistle (1174–1176), epistre (about 1265, Jean de Meun); épître from the 17th century.[2] Palsgrave notes that epistre was pronounced epitre.[3] It is one of three words in -ître with a circumflex.[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old French epistle, from Latin epistula (“letter; verse epistle”) (also “epistola”),[4][5][6][7] from Ancient Greek ἐπιστολή (epistolḗ, “message, letter”), formed from “epi” and a derivative of στέλλω (stéllō, “to send”).[5][3] Wiktionary takes it as probably a semi-learned borrowing; the learned épistole is a doublet.[1][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Guernes de Pont-Sainte-Maxence's Vie de saint Thomas (1174–1176) has epistles, the letters Becket sent to the king and the bishops.[4][3]

Semantic evolution

From the late 12th century, as in Christian Latin, it named the letters of the Apostles collected in the New Testament (les épîtres de saint Paul), and then the reading from them at Mass.[4][5] It was used of letters of the ancients (les épîtres de Cicéron) and, ironically, of any long letter.[5][8][6] Marot (1518–1519) made it the name of a literary genre, the letter in verse, as in Horace and Boileau, and épître dédicatoire a dedication placed at the head of a book.[4][5][3]

Timeline

  • 1174–1176 – Epistles “letters”.[4]
  • Late 12th century – Apistles, the epistles of Saint Paul.[4]
  • c. 1265 – Epistre in Jean de Meun.[2]
  • 1518–1519 – Marot's Petite Epistre au Roy.[4]
  • 1690 – The liturgical sense, in Furetière.[2]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A letter (of an ancient author): les épîtres de Cicéron, (ironic) a long letter.[8][1]
  2. An epistle of the Apostles; the reading from it at Mass.[8][9]
  3. A verse letter: les Épîtres de Marot, épître dédicatoire: dedication.[8][3]
  • épistolaire
  • épistole
  • apôtre
  • Latin epistula

References

  1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
  3. ^ a b c d e f Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h Trésor de la langue française informatisé (2004), ATILF – CNRS & Université de Lorraine, atilf.fr/tlfi; electronic version of Imbs, Paul; Quemada, Bernard, eds. (1971–1994), Trésor de la langue française, Paris: CNRS / Gallimard
  5. ^ a b c d e f Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
  6. ^ a b Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
  7. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 3, 232a
  8. ^ a b c d Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
  9. ^ Dictionnaire de français Larousse, larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais (accessed 2024)