archer

Forms

archer m (plural archers, feminine archère)^[1] Old French archier, arkier, arcier; the form archer appears in Anglo-Norman in the 12th century and prevails in the 16th.^[2][3] Feminine archère (Old French arkiere, 1209), rare.^[4][5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old French archier, probably inherited from Vulgar Latin *arcārius, an alteration of arcuārius (“bow maker”), from arcus (“bow”).^{[1][2][6][7][8]} The TLFi instead treats it as a French derivative of arc with the suffix ⟨-er⟩.^[4]

Cognate with Walloon airchi and Old Occitan arquier;^[9] Italian arciere was borrowed from French.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

In Guernes de Pont-Sainte-Maxence's Vie de saint Thomas (1174) archier is a soldier armed with a bow: E uns archiers Randulf.^[4][9] The Anglo-Norman Dictionary has a record from about 1136–1137.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The archer was a soldier or a hunter with a bow.^[2] In the 16th century the word also named a minor officer of justice (1530) and a police officer (1549), by then unconnected with the bow, since these archers carried muskets in the 17th century; this sense faded in the 18th century, surviving as a joke (1814) and in dialects.^[2][4] The francs archers were a tax-exempt militia created by Charles VII (1448).^[2][9]

In poetry archer and petit archer named Cupid (16th century, Corneille 1639).^[4] Having become a word of history, it returned with archery as a sport (1905).^[2] English took it from Anglo-French in the late 13th century as archer.^[8]

Timeline

• c. 1136–1137 – Earliest record in the Anglo-Norman Dictionary.^[3]
• 1174 – Archier in Guernes de Pont-Sainte-Maxence's Vie de saint Thomas.^[4]
• 1209 – The feminine arkiere, a woman who shoots with a bow.^[4]
• Late 13th century – English borrows it as archer.^[8]
• 1448 – Franc-archer.^[2]
• 1530 – A minor officer of justice; a police officer in 1549.^[2]
• 16th century – The form archer prevails, and the word is used for Cupid.^[2][4]
• 1905 – Used in sports archery.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. (historical) A soldier armed with a bow: les archers anglais de la guerre de Cent Ans.^[5][9]
2. (historical) Under the Ancien Régime, a police officer.^[5][9]
3. Someone who shoots with a bow, an archer (rare in the feminine).^[5][4]
4. (poetic) Le petit archer: Cupid.^[4][6]

Related words

• arc
• archet
• archère
• Latin arcus
• English archer

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
3. ^ a b c Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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 Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
6. ^ a b Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
7. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
8. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ a b c d e Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter