blocus

Forms

blocus m (invariable)^[1] Early forms include Old Walloon blokehus (1350), blochus (1376) and bloxhus (1380), Picard blocus (1397), blocquehuys (1485, Mons), blochuysse (1584) and Middle French bloccus (1547).^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Middle Dutch blochuus (“house built of beams, small fort”), a compound of bloc (“log, block”) and huus (“house”).^{[2][3][4][5][6]} The Middle Dutch word corresponds to German Blockhaus, the source of French blockhaus.^[2][3]

Littré took the word for the German form.^[7] The TLFi and Rey prefer a Middle Dutch source to the Middle High German one put forward by Diez and the REW, because the early records all come from the regions bordering on Dutch-speaking territory, and because later local forms of the 15th and 16th centuries reflect modern Dutch blokhuis.^[2][3] The modern sense of a blockade is not found in Dutch; it is a French development.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is Old Walloon blokehus in 1350, cited by the FEW without a quotation, meaning a house built of timber; the spelling blocus is found in a Picard document from Douai in 1397.^[2][8]

Semantic evolution

The sense of a timber house was alive in north-eastern France in the 14th and 15th centuries.^[3] From 1376, in the records of Liège, the word named a small fort built by besiegers to cut a besieged town off from the outside; this military sense reached general French in 1547, in Jean Martin's translation of Vitruvius, and was given up in the 17th century.^[2][3] Agrippa d'Aubigné still wrote of a town besieged de vingt-deux blocus “with twenty-two forts”.^[7]

The stress then moved to what the forts were for, and by metonymy the word came to mean the cutting off of a town, port or position itself (1663, Corneille).^[2][3] Blocus continental names Napoleon's system, set up by a decree dated 21 November 1806, for shutting Britain out of the European continent.^[2][3] In the 20th century the word was extended to the means used to prevent normal trade with another country (blocus économique).^[3][4] Rey notes that from the 19th century the noun gave new life to the verb bloquer.^[3] In Belgian French blocus is the period of intense study before examinations.^[3][1]

Timeline

• 1350 – Old Walloon blokehus “timber house”.^[2][3]
• 1376 – Blochus, in the records of Liège, names a besiegers' fort.^[2][4]
• 1397 – The spelling blocus appears in a Picard text from Douai.^[2][8]
• 1547 – Middle French bloccus “fort” in Jean Martin's Vitruvius.^[2]
• 1663 – Corneille uses it for the investment of a place.^[2]
• 1806 – The decree of 21 November sets up the blocus continental.^[2][3]
• 20th century – Blocus économique and the abstract sense of an embargo.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A blockade: the surrounding of a town, port, coast or whole country to cut it off from outside help and supplies: le blocus de la ville a duré trois mois.^[9][2][4]
2. Blocus naval: the stopping of ships from entering or leaving a port.^[4]
3. Blocus économique: measures that isolate a country from world trade, an embargo.^[4][9][1]
4. (history) Blocus continental: Napoleon's blockade of Britain.^[9][2]
5. (obsolete) A small fort, a blockhouse.^[9]
6. (Belgium) The revision period before university examinations.^[1][3]

Related words

• bloc
• blockhaus
• bloquer
• Middle Dutch blochuus

Usage notes

The word is invariable in the plural.^[1] Its final ⟨s⟩ is pronounced.^[7][8]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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 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
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
4. ^ a b c d e f Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
5. ^ Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
6. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 15/1, 162b
7. ^ a b c Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
8. ^ a b c Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
9. ^ a b c d Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert