étonner

Pronunciation

• IPA: /e.tɔ.ne/^[1]

Forms

étonner^[1] Old French estoner, estonner in the 15th century, étonner from the 17th.^[2][1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old French estoner, inherited from Vulgar Latin *extonō, from Latin attonō (“to strike with lightning; to stun”) by change of prefix (“ex-” for “ad-”), from tonō (“to thunder”) (see tonner).^{[3][4][5][6][7]} Littré, following Diez, also argued for “*extonare” and against a Germanic source, Wiktionary still mentions Frankish *stunōn (“to make a loud sound”), related to Old English stunian and English stun.^[8][1] Bloch and Wartburg note that the verb is rare outside French.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the Chanson de Roland (about 1100) estoner is intransitive: “to be stunned (by a violent blow)”; from the 12th to the 16th century it is usually transitive, “to stun, daze”.^[3][4]

Semantic evolution

About 1220 Gautier de Coinci uses it for striking with stupor, and in classical French it was still strong: “to shake, terrify, overwhelm”, which makes 17th-century texts hard to read today (Racine: la mort ne vous étonne-t-elle point ?).^[3][4][9] From the 15th century it also meant to shake or crack physically, kept in technical uses such as étonner une voûte.^[4][9]

The modern sense “to surprise” appears in the 17th century but remained strong, close to astonishment, until the 18th; it kept weakening in the 19th century, like its derivatives étonnant and étonnement.^[4][5]

Timeline

• c. 1100 – Estoner “to be stunned”, Chanson de Roland.^[3]
• c. 1220 – To strike with stupor, Gautier de Coinci.^[3]
• 13th century – The derivative étonnement.^[5]
• 17th century – “To surprise”.^[4][5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To surprise, astonish: cela m'étonne.^[9][1]
2. S'étonner: to be surprised, wonder: je m'étonne qu'il ne soit pas venu.^[9]
3. (archaic) To stun, overwhelm; to frighten.^[9][4]
4. (technical) To crack, shake (a vault, a diamond).^[9][4]

Word family

• étonnant
• étonnamment
• étonnement

Related words

• tonner
• English astonish

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
3. ^ a b c d e 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
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
5. ^ a b c d e Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
6. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
7. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 3, 329b
8. ^ Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
9. ^ a b c d e f Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert