bagage

Forms

bagage m (plural bagages)^[1] First baguage (about 1265), then bagage (early 16th century).^[2][3]

Etymology

It is formed from Old French bague + -age, a collective derivative of bagues “clothes and belongings carried with one”, although the base is recorded later, from 1449 according to Rey, in the 14th century according to Bloch and Wartburg.^[2][4][3][5] The base survived until the 18th century in the phrase ⟨bagues sauves⟩ “with one's baggage, unharmed”.^[2]

The origin of the base is uncertain.^[4][2] Rey places its home in the dialects of northern Italy and in Old Occitan baga (“bag, purse”), and suggests that French took it from Old Occitan, which may in turn have had it from the old dialect of Fribourg.^[2] A Germanic origin, from Old Norse baggi (“pack”), is very doubtful for Rey, since it does not fit the area of the word, and he takes the Norse word for a variant of pakki (“packet”);^[2] Bloch and Wartburg leave its relation to the Norse word and the English word bag unexplained.^[4] The GLLF and the Petit Robert, on the other hand, derive the base from the English word or the Norse one,^[6][7] and the Wiktionary from a form Late Latin *baga or from the Old French noun, ultimately from the Norse source of the English word.^[1] P. Guiraud proposed a variant Vulgar Latin *bacua of Latin vacua (“empty”).^[3]

Cognate with Occitan bagatge, Spanish bagaje and Portuguese bagagem.^[8] English baggage was borrowed from it in the 15th century.^[9][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Baguage is first found about 1265 in Brunetto Latini, meaning the equipment of an army.^[6][7][2]

Semantic evolution

For a long time the word meant an army's matériel and gear, and in the singular, collectively, its whole train, a sense still felt in armes et bagages.^[2][7] The everyday sense, the belongings one takes along, is found in Old French, notably of pilgrims' things, but spread only slowly, helped in the 18th century by English baggage, which English travellers used in France.^[2][3] In European French the plural now names the containers, suitcases and trunks, while in African French the word keeps the general sense of what one carries with one.^[2]

Plier bagage replaced trousser bagage (16th century) and came to mean, euphemistically, “to die” in the 17th and 18th centuries.^[2][8] From the early 16th century the singular also meant a useless encumbrance, and later the stock of knowledge acquired in a profession or an art (bagage intellectuel, before 1880, Flaubert), or a writer's works.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 1265 – Baguage “an army's equipment” in Brunetto Latini.^[6][2]
• 1449 – The base bagues is recorded.^[2]
• Mid-15th century – English borrows the word as baggage.^[9]
• Early 16th century – The form bagage appears, and the word is used of a useless encumbrance.^[2]
• 16th century – Trousser bagage “to pack up and leave”.^[2][8]
• 1765 – The Petit Robert's date for “belongings taken on a journey”.^[7]
• Before 1880 – Flaubert writes of bagage intellectuel.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. (often plural) luggage, the bags and cases that hold a traveller's belongings: bagages à main “hand luggage”.^[10][6][11]
2. (dated) Belongings taken on a journey: Il est parti avec un sac pour tout bagage.^[7][12]
3. (dated) The equipment of an army.^[7][2] Avec armes et bagages: with all one's gear.^[7][2]
4. (figurative) The stock of knowledge acquired by someone: bagage intellectuel.^[2][6][10]
5. Plier bagage: to pack up and leave.^[12][8]

Word family

• porte-bagages

Related words

• English baggage

References

1. ^ a b c 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 d Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
4. ^ a b c 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. 1, 204a
6. ^ a b c d e Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
7. ^ a b c d e f g Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
8. ^ a b c d Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
9. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
10. ^ a b Dictionnaire de français Larousse, larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais (accessed 2024)
11. ^ 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
12. ^ a b Dictionnaire Le Robert en ligne, dictionnaire.lerobert.com (accessed 2024)