ailleurs

Pronunciation

• IPA: /a.jœʁ/^[1]
• IPA (Louisiana): /aljɔr/^[1]
• IPA (Louisiana): /aljœr/^[1]

Forms

ailleurs^[1] Old French ailurs (about 1050), aillor(s) (12th century), allors (about 1200).^[2][3] Anglo-Norman spellings include aillurs, aillours and ailleur.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old French ailurs, probably inherited from Vulgar Latin *aliōre, with the adverbial “-s” added to an earlier “ailleur”.^[5][6][2] “*Aliōre” would be a comparative of Latin alius (“other”), taken from a phrase “*in aliore loco” “in another place” made on the model of “in superiore”, “interiore”, “exteriore loco”.^[5][3][7][6] The attested Latin adverb aliōrsum (“towards another place”) is the etymon in the FEW and was Diez's and Littré's explanation, but Bloch and Wartburg and Rey point out that it would not have given the vowel “eu”.^[8][5][2][9] Old Occitan had both alhor and “alhors”.^[5]

Compare Occitan alhors, Portuguese alhures and Romanian aiurea.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found as ailurs about 1050 in the Vie de saint Alexis, meaning “in another place”.^[3][2]

Semantic evolution

From the beginning of the 13th century it was used figuratively for “otherwise”.^[2] D'ailleurs meant “from another place” (1174), and, from the middle of the 17th century “besides, moreover”, par ailleurs was “by another way” (1160), then “in another respect”.^[2][3] In classical French it could refer to persons: aimer ailleurs “to love someone else”.^[3][10]

Et puis d'ailleurs is common in popular speech from the 1790s.^[11] In modern French être ailleurs means to be absent-minded, and the noun un ailleurs names a distant, different place, as in venus d'ailleurs, said of extraterrestrials.^[2][12]

Timeline

• c. 1050 – Ailurs in the Vie de saint Alexis.^[3]
• 1160 – Par ailleurs “by another way”.^[2]
• 1174 – D'ailleurs “from elsewhere”.^[2]
• Mid-17th century – D'ailleurs “moreover”.^[2]
• 1792 – Et puis d'ailleurs in the Père Duchesne.^[11]

Meanings

Adverb

1. elsewhere, somewhere else: allons ailleurs, nulle part ailleurs.^[10][12]
2. From another source or cause: le mal vient d'ailleurs.^[12][3]
3. Être ailleurs: to be absent-minded.^[10][3]
4. D'ailleurs: besides, moreover, par ailleurs: in other respects, otherwise.^[3][2]
5. Aller voir ailleurs: to be unfaithful (euphemism).^[12]

Noun

1. (literary) A distant or different place: la quête d'un ailleurs.^[12]

Related words

• autre
• Latin alius

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
4. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
5. ^ a b c d Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
6. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
9. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 24, 321a
10. ^ a b c Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
11. ^ a b Quemada, Bernard, ed. (1959–2006), Datations et documents lexicographiques (Base historique du vocabulaire français, BHVF), Paris: Klincksieck / CNRS / Champion; ATILF
12. ^ a b c d e Dictionnaire de français Larousse, larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais (accessed 2024)