Etymologically
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arbre

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Pronunciation

  • IPA: /aʁbʁ/[1]
  • IPA (Louisiana): [zab][1]

Forms

arbre m (plural arbres)[1] Old French also aubre, haubre.[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin arbor (“tree; mast”), from the accusative “arborem”, in popular Latin *arbrem.[3][4][5][6] Rey calls the Latin word obscure, there being no common Indo-European word for “tree”; its feminine gender in Latin is explained by the tree's role as “mother of fruits”, but most Romance languages made it masculine, like other nouns in “-or”.[3][7] Latin “arbor” already meant a mast and a part of the oil press.[4][7]

Cognate with Romanian arbore, Italian albero, Occitan arbre, Catalan arbre, Spanish árbol and Portuguese árvore, which kept the feminine.[1][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is in the Chanson de Roland (about 1100): Haut sont li pui et mout haut sont les arbres, “high are the hills and very high the trees”.[2][7]

Semantic evolution

The word has been common at every period, with symbolic values of mythical origin (the tree of knowledge of good and evil, from the 12th century; the Christmas tree) and the image of lineage, as in the tree of Jesse and the arbre généalogique.[3] Many phrases name plants: arbre de Judée (16th century), arbre à pain, arbre du voyageur; in African French there are the arbre à palabres and the arbre à beurre (shea).[3][1]

Objects shaped like a trunk took the name: a mast (13th to late 18th century), the shaft of a mill or press (12th century), whence the mechanical arbre “shaft, axle”: arbre de couche (1866), arbre à cames.[3][1] Branching patterns gave the alchemists' arbre de Mars (1751) and the tree diagrams of logic and linguistics.[3][1] During the Revolution, and again in 1830 and 1848, arbres de la Liberté were planted.[7]

Timeline

  • c. 1100 – Arbres in the Chanson de Roland.[2]
  • 12th century – The shaft of a mill or press.[3]
  • 13th century – A ship's mast.[3]
  • 16th century – Arbre de Judée.[3]
  • 1690 – The axis of a pendulum.[3]
  • 1866 – Arbre de couche.[3]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A tree: a large woody plant with a trunk branching above a certain height: arbre fruitier, arbre de Noël.[8][7]
  2. Arbre généalogique: a family tree.[3][1]
  3. A branching diagram: (linguistics, computing) a tree.[1][3]
  4. (mechanics) A shaft, axle: arbre à cames (camshaft), arbre moteur.[1][3]
  5. (Africa) Arbre à palabres: a tree under which a community meets to talk.[3]
  • arbrisseau
  • arbuste
  • arborescent
  • arboriculture
  • Latin arbor

Usage notes

The saying entre l'arbre et l'écorce il ne faut pas mettre le doigt (1666) advises against meddling in a dispute between close parties.[8][1]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
  4. ^ a b Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
  5. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
  6. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 25, 88a
  7. ^ a b c d e Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
  8. ^ a b Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert