ardre

Forms

ardre^[1] Infinitive also ardoir, the usual form until the end of the 15th century, and arder, an 18th-century remaking admitted by the Académie.^[2][3][4] The conjugation is defective: j'ars, nous ardons, j'ardais, que j'arde; past participle ars, arse.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old French ardoir, inherited from Latin ardeō (“to burn”),^[2][5][3][6] with a change of conjugation in the form ardre.^[4] Wiktionary derives that form from a third-conjugation verb of Vulgar Latin and ⟨ardoir⟩ directly from the Latin verb.^[1] The Grand Robert calls the infinitive ⟨arder⟩ a barbarism, though the Académie admits it.^[5]

Rey relates the Latin verb to ārdor (“burning”) and āridus (“dry”), all from āreō (“to be dry”), and compares Old High German asca (“ash”).^[2] It passed into all the Romance languages:^[2] cognate with Italian ardere, Spanish arder and Old Occitan ardre.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first recorded in the Sequence of Saint Eulalia (about 881), meaning “to burn”.^[5][2]

Semantic evolution

In Old and Middle French the verb was very common, intransitive for “to be consumed by fire” and, from the late 10th century, transitive for “to burn, set on fire”, with many extended uses for what gnaws like a canker or causes a burning feeling.^[2] It entered curses such as mal feu arde “may an evil fire burn him”, still heard in the 17th century as le feu Saint-Antoine l'arde.^[2][3] The present participle survives in ardent, as in mal des ardents, the name of gangrenous erysipelas.^[7]

From the 15th century ardoir, ardre and arder competed with brûler, and they gave way to it in the first half of the 16th century.^[2] By the 17th century the verb had left ordinary use and survived only as a deliberate archaism;^[4] the past participle ars, arse died out with it.^[2] Gide used it in a letter of 1891 for the burning bush that was not consumed.^[8]

Timeline

• c. 881 – The verb appears in the Sequence of Saint Eulalia.^[5][2]
• late 10th century – First transitive use, “to burn, set on fire”.^[2]
• 12th century – First record of the past participle ars.^[2]
• 15th century – The infinitive ardre is found, and the verb begins to yield to brûler.^[4][2]
• first half of the 16th century – Brûler replaces it in ordinary use.^[2]
• 18th century – The remade infinitive arder appears.^[3]
• 1891 – Gide writes of the bush qui ardait et ne se consumait pas.^[8]

Meanings

Verb

1. (archaic, intransitive) To burn, be on fire: les braises ardaient encore dans l'âtre.^[8][4][3]
2. (archaic, literary, intransitive) To burn with passion or zeal.^[4]
3. (archaic, transitive) To consume by fire, or to scorch with great heat.^[4][1]

Related words

• ardent
• ardeur
• aride
• brûler
• Latin ardeō

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
3. ^ a b c d e Académie française (1992–2024), Dictionnaire de l'Académie française, 9th ed., Paris: Académie française / Fayard / Imprimerie nationale
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
5. ^ a b c d 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, 140a
7. ^ a b Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
8. ^ a b c 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