Etymologically
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bois

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Pronunciation

Forms

bois m (countable and uncountable, invariable)[1] Old French bos, bosc, and bois, Middle French boys.[2][1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Medieval Latin boscus (“wooded land”), recorded from 704 in a charter of Childeric III, and in the plural “bosci”, which gave “bois” (“boscus” would have given “bos”).[2][3][4][1] The Medieval Latin word is borrowed from Frankish *busk (“bush, thicket”), which can be deduced from Old High German busc and Old Saxon busc; compare German Busch and English bush.[2][3][1][5] The age of the word in Germanic rules out a borrowing the other way, and its spread through Gallo-Romance, Catalonia (878) and northern Italy (895) favours a Frankish source.[2] Pierre Guiraud did not rule out a connection with Latin buxus (“box tree”).[6]

Cognate with Old Occitan bosc, Italian bosco and Spanish bosque.[3][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in the Chanson de Roland (about 1100), meaning a place covered with trees.[6][2]

Semantic evolution

In Old French bois stood beside selve, from Latin silva, which it eliminated; it remains in competition with forêt, which in the Middle Ages was land reserved for lordly hunting.[2][3] Early on it took the sense “wood, the substance of trees”, ousting Old French leigne from Latin ligna; worked wood is recorded from 1243 (en bosc).[3][2] By metonymy it also named a deer's antlers, woodwind instruments and woodcuts.[1][4]

In Canadian French le bois may be a large forest, as in coureur de bois, and on n'est pas sorti du bois means “we're not out of the woods yet”.[2] Derivatives include boiser (1671), boiserie (about 1700), bûcheron (1550, from boscheron) and buisson (12th century).[3]

Timeline

  • 704 – Boscus in a Merovingian charter.[2]
  • c. 1100 – In the Chanson de Roland.[6]
  • 12th century – Buisson.[3]
  • 1243 – En bosc “made of wood”.[2]
  • 13th century – Boscheron, later bûcheron.[3]
  • 1671 – Boiser.[3]
  • 1869 – Sous-bois.[3]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A wood, small forest: se promener dans les bois.[4][1]
  2. Wood as a material: une table en bois, bois de chauffage.[1]
  3. A kind of wood: un bois précieux.[1]
  4. Bois (plural): the antlers of a deer.[4][1]
  5. (music) The woodwind instruments.[1]
  6. (art) A woodcut, (golf) a wood.[1]
  7. Toucher du bois: to touch wood, langue de bois: political cant, gueule de bois: a hangover.[1]

Word family

  • hautbois
  • sous-bois
  • boiser
  • boiserie
  • bûcheron
  • buisson

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
  4. ^ a b c d Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
  5. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 15/1, 192b
  6. ^ a b c Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
  7. ^ Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette