bouter

Forms

bouter^[1] Old French boter and buter.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Frankish *bōtan (“to push, strike”),^{[5][6][7][8][1][9]} reconstructed from Middle Low German boten, Old English bēatan (“to beat”), Old High German bōzzan (“to beat”) and Old Norse bauta (“to strike”),^[5][1] which all go back to Proto-Germanic *bautaną (“to beat”).^[5][1] The English word beat belongs to the same group.^[5][1] Because the word entered Gallo-Romance rather late, the /t/ between vowels was kept, as in Old Occitan botar.^[6] Spanish botar and Portuguese botar were borrowed from French,^[5] as was Italian buttare (“to throw”).^[6]

A Celtic origin has also been proposed, Gaulish *bota (“to strike”) giving Vulgar Latin *bottō, but Rey thinks it poorly founded.^[5] Guiraud derived a Romance *botitō from a root meaning “to swell”.^[7] Littré took the verb from Middle High German, and noted d'Arbois de Jubainville's objection that the Frankish form had escaped the second consonant shift.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Chanson de Roland (about 1080) is the first record, with the sense “to push, strike”;^[6][10][7] Littré quotes its line en sa hoese les butet.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The verb was very much alive in Old French, declined in Middle French and left ordinary use in the 17th and 18th centuries, displaced by pousser, frapper, mettre and placer.^[5][6] “To push out, strike” (about 1155) survived in the Picard, Walloon, Norman and Angevin dialects,^[5] and “to put” lives on in the dialects of the east, south-east and south-west.^[6] Vaugelas already reported boutez-vous là as said in mockery of bad speech.^[10]

“To thrust in violently” (1144) gave bouter le feu “to set fire” (1309), which faded in France during the 17th century but produced boutefeu and remains in use in Belgium.^[5][8] Narrower senses of pushing outlasted the general one: of wind driving a boat (after 1207), of hounds rousing game (about 1230) and in building, of bearing a thrust (1387), whence arc-boutant.^[5] Of wine, “to turn thick” (11th century) survives only in the participle bouté.^[5] The tanners' sense “to clean hides” (1723) comes from boutoir.^[5] Today the verb is archaic or literary, mainly in the historical phrase bouter les Anglais hors de France.^[5]

Its derivatives, rich from the 12th to the 17th century, outlived it: bout, bouton, debout, boutade and aboutir among them.^[5][6]

Timeline

• c. 1080 – First recorded in the Chanson de Roland.^[6][7][10]
• 1144 – Used for thrusting something in violently.^[5]
• c. 1155 – “To push out, to strike”.^[5]
• 1309 – Bouter le feu “to set fire”.^[5]
• 1387 – In building, “to bear a thrust”.^[5]
• 1530 – Of a plant, “to sprout”, a sense since lost.^[5]
• 17th century – The verb leaves ordinary use.^[5][10]
• 1723 – The tanners' sense “to clean hides”.^[5]

Meanings

Verb

1. (archaic) To push, drive back;^[8][11][10] bouter hors: to drive out, as in bouter les envahisseurs hors du pays.^[8][11][10]
2. (regional) To put, place.^[11][10][4]
3. (Belgium, Switzerland) Bouter le feu: to set fire to something.^[8][5]
4. (architecture) To withstand a thrust.^[11]
5. (tanning) To clean hides with the boutoir.^[11][4]
6. (pin-making) To set pins in even rows on paper.^[11][4]
7. (nautical) Bouter au large: to push off towards the open sea.^[11][4]
8. (hunting) Bouter la bête: to rouse the game.^[11][4]

Word family

• bout
• debout
• embouter
• boutade
• bouterolle
• boutoir
• bouton
• bouture
• débouter
• rebouteur
• boute-en-train
• boutefeu
• boute-selle
• bouteroue
• arc-boutant
• aboutir

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
3. ^ Tobler, Adolf; Lommatzsch, Erhard (1925–2002), Altfranzösisches Wörterbuch, 11 vols., Berlin / Wiesbaden / Stuttgart: Weidmann / Steiner, p. 1:1092
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
7. ^ a b c d Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
8. ^ a b c d e Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
9. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 15/1, 210a
10. ^ a b c d e f g Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
11. ^ a b c d e f g h 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