être

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ɛtʁ/^[1]
• IPA: /ɛːtʁ/^[1]
• IPA (Louisiana): [ɛt(ɾ)]^[1]
• IPA (Louisiana): [dɛt(ɾ)]^[1]

Forms

être^[1] Old French infinitive estre; the spelling être dates from the 17th century.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old French estre, inherited from Vulgar Latin *essere, a popular remaking of Classical Latin esse (“to be”).^[4][5][3] The conjugated forms come, more or less regularly, from the Latin ones, with alterations already in Late Latin and many analogical remakings.^[4] The past participle été and the present participle étant were taken from Old French ester (“to stand”), from Latin stō (“to stand”).^[4][6][5] The Old French imperfect iere, ere, from eram, gave way by the middle of the 13th century to esteie, the ancestor of the modern imperfect; some explain it by the same verb, others as remade on the infinitive.^[4][6] The future serai comes from a combination of the infinitive with *aiō (“I have”), and replaced the older futures ier, er from erō in the 14th century.^[4][6] The preterite fui continues fuī (“I was”), from a different Indo-European root, Proto-Indo-European *bhū-, whose original sense “to grow” survives in Ancient Greek φύω (phúō).^[6][7]

The Latin verb, like Ancient Greek εἶναι (eînai), goes back to an Indo-European root Proto-Indo-European *es- “to be found”, which was not at first a copula; it is also the source of English is.^[6][8] Cognate with Italian essere, Catalan ésser, Occitan èsser, Spanish ser and Portuguese ser.^[1] Spanish and Portuguese have kept estar (from the same verb “stāre”) beside ser, which they use only as copula and auxiliary.^{[5][6][1][6][5]}

Earliest recorded meaning

In the Strasbourg Oaths (842) the verb is already used with a prepositional complement describing the state or situation of the subject.^[4] The Sequence of Saint Eulalia (881–882) uses it to link a subject to a quality: Buona pulcella fut Eulalia “Eulalia was a good maiden”.^[4][7]

Semantic evolution

In the second half of the 10th century être is found in the strong sense “to exist, to be real”, a sense kept in philosophy, as in je pense, donc je suis, the French version of Descartes's cogito ergo sum.^[4][6] By about 980 it was used impersonally (il est “there is”), with the demonstrative ce (c'est) to present and highlight part of a sentence, and as the auxiliary of the passive, of pronominal verbs and of some intransitive verbs.^[4][6] Être à followed by an infinitive meant “must be” (1119), and être à “to be busy at” is found in 1174–76.^[4]

The infinitive was used as a noun from the 12th century, first for “existence, way of being”, then for “a being, a creature”;^[5][8][3] bien-être was formed in 1580 by Montaigne and non-être in the 14th century.^[5] In the 17th century en être was a veiled way of saying that a man was homosexual.^[9]

Timeline

• 842 – The verb appears in the Strasbourg Oaths.^[4]
• 881–882 – The Sequence of Saint Eulalia uses it with an attribute.^[4]
• c. 980 – First use as the auxiliary of the passive and in impersonal il est.^[4]
• c. 1030 – The infinitive estre is used as a noun.^[3]
• 1080 – The infinitive is recorded in the Chanson de Roland.^[3]
• mid-13th century – The imperfect forms iere, ere drop out of ordinary use.^[6]
• 14th century – The old future forms ier, er disappear.^[6]
• 1580 – Montaigne coins bien-être.^[5]
• 1657–59 – Tallemant des Réaux records the innuendo en être.^[9]

Meanings

Verb

1. To be: links a subject to its attribute: la terre est ronde.^[1][7]
2. To exist, to be real.^[4][10]
3. To be (somewhere), to be located.^[1]
4. (impersonal) Il est: there is; used to give the time or the date.^[1][6]
5. Être à: to belong to; with an infinitive, to need to be done: c'est à refaire.^[4][2]
6. (auxiliary) Forms the passive and the compound tenses of pronominal verbs and of some intransitive verbs of motion or change of state (venir, naître, mourir).^[10][1]

Noun

1. A being, a living creature: les êtres vivants.^[8][10]
2. A person, an individual: un être cher.^[10]
3. (philosophy) The fact of being; existence: l'être et le néant.^[8][10]
4. A person's inner nature; essence.^[8][10]

Word family

• peut-être
• bien-être
• non-être

Related words

• ester
• Latin sum

Usage notes

Être itself forms its compound tenses with avoir (j'ai été).^[3] The old use of ester “to stand” survives in law in ester en justice “to go to law”.^[6]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b 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 Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o 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 g Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
7. ^ a b c Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
8. ^ a b c d e Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
9. ^ a b Quemada, Bernard, ed. (1959–2006), Datations et documents lexicographiques (Base historique du vocabulaire français, BHVF), Paris: Klincksieck / CNRS / Champion; ATILF
10. ^ a b c d e f Dictionnaire de français Larousse, larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais (accessed 2024)