arcane

Forms

arcane (plural arcanes)^[1] Older spellings archane and arquenne (in the French Marco Polo).^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin arcānum (“secret, mystery”), a learned borrowing of the noun use of the adjective arcānus (“secret, hidden”),^{[3][5][6][7][8]} which is derived from the concrete arca (“chest, box”) (the source of arche);^[3][9] Littré explains it as what is locked in a chest and so hidden from every eye.^[9] In Latin the adjective had passed into religious use with the sense “esoteric”.^[3]

Bloch and Wartburg think that the modern noun, used from Balzac on, was taken up again from 16th-century French.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Petit Robert dates archane “mysterious operation” to the late 14th century, and Rey cites the form arquenne in the French Marco Polo.^[2][3] About 1500 Saint-Gelais writes of les fatales archanes in his translation of the Aeneid, in the sense “secrets, mysteries”.^[10]

Semantic evolution

In the 15th and 16th centuries the word was also an adjective “secret” (archane, 1504, Le Maire has choses si archkanes), still used by Molière in 1664 but gone after the 17th century.^[3][7][4][5] The noun became a term of alchemy, a secret preparation known only to adepts (1613, or 1631 in Bloch and Wartburg); arcane double was potassium sulphate (1751).^[3][7] Littré also records it for a remedy of secret composition and a metal alloy used in tinning.^[9]

It returned to favour in the early 19th century in the plural, for the secrets of a field of knowledge: Balzac speaks of les arcanes de la nature in 1833.^[3][7] The word stays literary, and its gender has wavered, being sometimes feminine.^[3] In occultism the cards of the tarot used for divination are called arcanes: 22 major and 56 minor ones.^[11][2]

Timeline

• Late 14th century – Archane “mysterious operation”.^[2]
• c. 1500 – Saint-Gelais writes les fatales archanes in his Aeneid.^[10]
• 1504 – The adjective archane “secret”.^[3]
• 1613 – An alchemical preparation reserved to adepts.^[3]
• 1664 – Molière still uses the adjective.^[7][5]
• 1751 – Arcane double names potassium sulphate.^[3]
• 1833 – Balzac writes of les arcanes de la nature.^[3][7]

Meanings

Noun

1. (alchemy) A secret operation or preparation known only to initiates.^{[12][2][13][11]}
2. (literary) Usually in the plural, a mystery or secret: les arcanes de la science, les arcanes de la politique.^{[2][13][11][1]}
3. (occultism) A card of the tarot used in fortune-telling: arcanes majeurs, arcanes mineurs.^[2][13][11]

Adjective

1. (dated, literary) Arcane, secret, mysterious.^[5][1]

Related words

• arche
• Latin arcānus
• English arcane

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
3. ^ 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
4. ^ a b Godefroy, Frédéric (1881–1902), Dictionnaire de l'ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IXe au XVe siècle, 10 vols., Paris: Vieweg / Bouillon
5. ^ a b c d Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
6. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
7. ^ 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
8. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 25, 94b
9. ^ a b c Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
10. ^ a b Dictionnaire du Moyen Français, version 2015 (DMF 2015), ATILF – CNRS & Université de Lorraine, atilf.fr/dmf
11. ^ a b c d Dictionnaire de français Larousse, larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais (accessed 2024)
12. ^ 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
13. ^ a b c Dictionnaire Le Robert en ligne, dictionnaire.lerobert.com (accessed 2024)