Etymologically
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autorité

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Pronunciation

  • IPA: /o.tɔ.ʁi.te/[1]
  • IPA: /ɔ.tɔ.ʁi.te/[1]

Forms

autorité f (plural autorités)[1] Old French auctorité (1119); Palsgrave says that in the 16th century it was written auctorité and pronounced outorité.[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin auctōritās (“authority; credit, influence”),[2][3][5][6] from auctor (“founder, guarantor; author”), the source of auteur.[2][7] The Latin noun named the quality of an author in all the senses of that word (founder, adviser, guarantor, seller, owner, author); it also meant the power to make oneself obeyed, the credit of a writer or text, and in Church Latin that of a revealed text.[2] Wiktionary treats the Old French word as inherited in form but borrowed from Latin.[1]

Compare Old Occitan auctoritat, Spanish autoridad and Italian autorità.[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Philippe de Thaon uses auctorité in 1119;[5][3] its first known uses are tied to the sacred texts, “a text of Scripture”.[2]

Semantic evolution

The sense “power to make oneself obeyed” is found by 1174, and “binding force of what has been judged or decided” in the 13th century,[2] when the word also meant the weight of a quoted authority, a sense kept in Spanish autoridad “model quotation”.[2] In Amyot (1559) it is the esteem a person enjoys, a sign of moral superiority.[2][8]

The political sense, an organ of power, belongs to classical French (mid-17th century), and the plural les autorités for magistrates and senior officials appears in 1790 (Turgot).[2] D'autorité (mid-17th century) gave the slang d'autor “necessarily” (1830).[2] The derivative autoritaire (1863) was first said of political power, then of character (Zola, 1873).[2]

Timeline

  • 1119 – Auctorité in Philippe de Thaon.[5]
  • 1174 – “Power to command”.[2]
  • 13th century – Force of a judgment; of a quoted authority.[2]
  • 1559 – Personal credit and esteem, in Amyot.[2][8]
  • Mid-17th century – An organ of power, d'autorité.[2]
  • 1790 – Les autorités, in Turgot.[2]
  • 1830 – Slang d'autor.[2]
  • 1863 – Autoritaire.[2]

Meanings

Noun

  1. Authority, the right or power to command and be obeyed: autorité parentale, avoir autorité sur quelqu'un.[7][5][1]
  2. A body or person holding power, les autorités, the authorities.[1][2]
  3. Personal ascendancy, the prestige that makes others defer: faire autorité, to be authoritative.[2][1]
  4. D'autorité: on one's own authority, without consulting anyone.[2]
  5. Argument d'autorité: an argument from authority.[1]

Word family

  • autoritaire

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
  3. ^ a b c Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
  4. ^ a b Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
  5. ^ a b c d Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
  6. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 25, 814a
  7. ^ a b Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
  8. ^ a b Quemada, Bernard, ed. (1959–2006), Datations et documents lexicographiques (Base historique du vocabulaire français, BHVF), Paris: Klincksieck / CNRS / Champion; ATILF