blaireau

Forms

blaireau m (plural blaireaux, feminine blairelle)^[1] Old French blarel (1312), Middle French blariau (1387–1391);^[2][3] Middle French blereau.^[1][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle French blariau, from Old French blarel, formed from Old French bler + -el, an adjective of colour applied to a horse's coat.^[2][3][5][6]

The origin of the adjective is disputed.^[3][2][7] Bloch and Wartburg and Rey derive it from Gaulish *blāros, which would have named the badger after the white mark on its head, a word reconstructed from Welsh blawr (“grey”) and Scottish Gaelic blar (“with a white mark on the forehead”);^[3][2] they add that it may have merged with Frankish *blāri, to which Dutch blaar, said of a cow with a white blaze, corresponds.^[3][2] The Grand Larousse and the Petit Robert give the Frankish word alone.^[7][8] Older proposals, such as Diez's “little corn thief”, from Medieval Latin bladum (“corn”), are set out and rejected by Littré.^[4]

The word replaced Old French taisson (1247) in the northern dialects;^[3][2] Bloch and Wartburg note that Old Occitan blar was also a colour word, and that the simple word and its derivatives name animals with a white mark on the head.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first recorded as blarel in 1312, naming the badger.^[3][5][2]

Semantic evolution

Villon (15th century) wrote blereaux, and Rabelais blereauz.^[4] By metonymy the word came to mean a brush made of badger hair, used by painters and gilders (1751), and later the brush for lathering the face before shaving.^[2][7]

Nez de blaireau “long nose” is found in Scarron in 1646, and in slang blaireau meant “nose” (1834), a sense that has gone but left the clipped form blair (1872).^[2] Army slang used it for a raw recruit (1841).^[2][8] In the 1970s it came back as a word for a naive, insignificant or ridiculous person.^[2][8]

Timeline

• 1312 – Blarel is first recorded.^[3][2]
• 1387–1391 – The form blariau appears.^[2]
• 1646 – Scarron uses nez de blaireau for a long nose.^[2]
• 1751 – It names a painter's brush of badger hair.^[2]
• 1834 – Slang uses it for the nose.^[2]
• 1841 – Army slang uses it for a conscript.^[2][8]
• c. 1850 – The derivative blaireauter “to soften with the badger brush” appears.^[2]
• 1872 – The clipped form blair “nose” is recorded.^[2]
• 1970s – It comes back as a word for a naive or ridiculous person.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A badger, a stocky, short-legged mammal that digs a burrow.^[8][9][10]
2. A painter's or gilder's brush made of badger hair.^[8][7][4]
3. A shaving brush.^[8][7][4]
4. (familiar) A naive, insignificant or ridiculous person.^[8][2]

Word family

• blair
• blaireauter

Related words

• tanière

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 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 e f g h i Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
4. ^ a b c d e Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
5. ^ a b 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. 1, 401a
7. ^ a b c d e Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
8. ^ a b c d e f g h Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
9. ^ 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
10. ^ Dictionnaire de français Larousse, larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais (accessed 2024)