allier

Forms

allier^[1] Old French alier, aleier and aloier; in the metal sense also allayer (1389) and aloyer (1547).^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old French alier, inherited from Latin alligō (“to bind to”), formed from ad- and ligō (“to bind”).^{[2][4][3][5][1]} The TLFi calls the sense “to join” a borrowing from the Latin verb, which already meant “to unite” in Cicero.^[6] The Old French variant aloier gave aloi, and Wiktionary calls the form aloyer a doublet.^[3][1]

Cognate with Italian allegare (“to alloy”), Spanish allegar (“to gather”) and Spanish aliar.^[3][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in the Chanson de Roland (about 1100), as s'alier “to join, rally”: the knight bears the dragon a cui sa gent s'alient, round which his people rally.^[6][5]

Semantic evolution

In Old French the verb meant “to gather, unite” of people, a sense now gone that lives on in rallier, and “to make an alliance” (1165–1170); soi allier “to join forces” (12th century) survived, while s'allier “to become friends” (1538) disappeared.^[2] The sense “to become related by marriage” dates from the 16th century, in Amyot.^[2]

The sense “to combine metals” is found in the Roman d'Alexandre (1170–1200) and of coinage in 1359; it gave aloi and alliage.^[6][2][3] The verb also meant “to tie, bind” (about 1280, in Picard), from which, according to Wartburg, came the abstract sense “to join two different things” (Pascal, 1657).^[2]

Timeline

• c. 1100 – S'alier “to rally” appears in the Chanson de Roland.^[6]
• c. 1150 – The noun alliance is recorded.^[3]
• 1170–1200 – The Roman d'Alexandre uses it of combining metals.^[6]
• c. 1260 – aloi is recorded, from the form aloier.^[3]
• 1359 – It is used of alloying coinage in the accounts of Tours.^[6]
• 1515 – alliage is recorded.^[3]
• 1657 – Pascal uses it for joining different things.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. (reflexive) S'allier à, avec: to ally oneself with, by a treaty or an agreement;^[7][6] (law) to be united by marriage.^[7][6]
2. (transitive) To combine (metals) in an alloy.^[7][1]
3. (transitive, figurative) To combine or join (different qualities or things).^[7][8]
4. (dated) To unite (persons or families) by marriage.^[6][5]

Word family

• alliage
• alliance
• allié
• mésallier
• rallier
• aloi

Related words

• lier
• Latin alligō
• English ally

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
4. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 5, 326a
5. ^ a b c d Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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
7. ^ a b c d Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
8. ^ Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse