Etymologically
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être

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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

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)