arrangement

Forms

arrangement m (plural arrangements)^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from French arranger + -ment.^[2][1][3][4] The verb arranger, Old French arangier, is listed by Bloch and Wartburg as a compound of rang, which they derive from Frankish *hring (“circle, ring”).^[4][1][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first recorded about 1300 in the sense “action of arranging”.^[3] The dictionaries date it variously: the 13th century in the Grand Robert and the Petit Robert, the beginning of the 14th century in the GLLF, and 1318 in Bloch and Wartburg.^[2][6][7][4]

Semantic evolution

The noun took only some of the senses of the verb arranger.^[3] Cotgrave glossed it in 1611 as “an ordering, sorting, ranging, ranking”,^[8] and the Académie in 1694 defined it as the order of things arranged, as of books or vases, and the order of the words in a discourse.^[9] In the classical language it meant “organization, order”, a sense now didactic, as in algebra (1863), or literary.^[3]

Its main specialized uses are rhetorical, of style (Vaugelas, 1647), musical (1863; in the 20th century, in jazz, close to “orchestration”), and legal or financial, for an agreement or settlement (1732).^[3] Littré also records the sense “order in one's spending”.^[10]

Timeline

• c. 1300 – First recorded, meaning “action of arranging”.^[3]
• 1318 – Bloch and Wartburg's date of first record.^[4]
• 1611 – Cotgrave glosses it “an ordering, sorting, ranging”.^[8]
• 1647 – Vaugelas uses it of the arrangement of words in style.^[3]
• 1694 – Recorded by the Académie.^[9]
• 1732 – Used for an agreement or settlement.^[3]
• 1863 – Used in music and in algebra.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. The action of placing things in a certain order, and the resulting disposition: l'arrangement des meubles dans le salon.^[6][11]
2. (music) The adaptation of a composition for other voices or instruments, and the piece so adapted, an arrangement or transcription.^[6][11]
3. (mathematics) A group of p elements taken from m, each group differing from the others in its elements or their order.^[6]
4. A measure taken to organize something: les arrangements du voyage.^[11][7]
5. An amicable agreement or settlement between persons or groups: parvenir à un arrangement.^[11][7][10]

Related words

• arranger
• ranger
• rang
• arrangeur

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
4. ^ a b c d Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
5. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 16, 244b
6. ^ a b c d Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
7. ^ a b c Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
8. ^ a b Cotgrave, Randle (1611), A Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues, London: Adam Islip
9. ^ a b Académie française (1694), Le Dictionnaire de l'Académie françoise, 1st ed., Paris: Coignard
10. ^ a b Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
11. ^ a b c d Dictionnaire de français Larousse, larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais (accessed 2024)