brume

Forms

brume f (plural brumes)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Old Occitan bruma according to Bloch and Wartburg and the Grand Robert, the regular outcome of Latin brūma (“winter solstice, winter”).^[2][3][4] Rey and Wiktionary instead take it straight from Latin, with the Old Occitan word as a very possible intermediary.^[5][1] Bloch and Wartburg point to the word's rarity in Old French and in the northern dialects as the reason to see it as a loan from the south.^[2] The Latin word first meant the shortest day of the year, the winter solstice, and then, in poetry, the cold season.^[5][6] Rey thinks it is probably the feminine, used as a noun, of an old superlative *brevima of brevis (“short”), as Varro's explanation of the name already suggests.^[5][7]

Cognate with Italian bruma (“winter”), Spanish bruma (“mist”), Portuguese bruma, Catalan broma and Romanian brumă (“hoarfrost”).^[2][8][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Borrowed in 1265, it named the period of the shortest days, that is, winter.^[5][3] Rabelais in the 16th century still writes that there is never a storm at sea sept jours devant et sept jours après brume “seven days before and seven days after the winter solstice”.^[8]

Semantic evolution

The sense “winter” lost ground to hiver, which finally drove it out.^[5] Because the season was marked by its weather, the word moved to “fog at sea” (1562), a seaman's use that spread at the end of the 17th century;^[5][3] Furetière's dictionary of 1701 records it.^[5][3] In 1752 it was used more widely for the haze of fine droplets that forms over water, and then for a thin veil of fog in general.^[5]

After 1850 it took the figurative sense of anything that keeps one from seeing or understanding clearly.^[5][7] The word only became common in the 18th century, and its lasting derivatives date from then: brumeux (1787) and brumaire (1793), the month of fog in the Revolutionary calendar.^[5][2] English borrowed it as brume “fog, mist” in 1808.^[10]

Timeline

• 1265 – First record, in the sense “winter days”.^[3][5]
• c. 1360 – Guillaume de Machaut uses brumes of the murk left by storms.^[6][8]
• 1562 – First used for fog at sea.^[3][5]
• 1701 – Furetière records the seaman's sense.^[5]
• 1752 – It is used of the mist over water.^[5]
• 1787 – The adjective brumeux appears.^[5][2]
• 1793 – Fabre d'Églantine names the month brumaire.^[5][2]
• 1808 – English borrows it as brume.^[10]
• After 1850 – Figurative sense “what clouds sight or understanding”.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. mist, haze or fog, more or less thick: brume de chaleur “heat haze”.^[7][1]
2. (meteorology) A light fog in which one can still see for more than a kilometre.^[7][11]
3. (nautical) Fog at sea: signal de brume “foghorn signal”.^[7][6]
4. (figurative) Whatever clouds the sight or the mind and keeps one from understanding clearly.^[7][5]

Word family

• brumaire
• brumeux
• brumasser
• embrumer

Related words

• bref
• Latin brūma
• English brume

Usage notes

Littré records brume sèche for a fog that leaves no moisture, and the saying dans la brume tout le monde est pilote, used when no one knows more than anyone else and so everyone gives orders.^[8]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
3. ^ a b c d e f Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
4. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 1, 561a
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
6. ^ a b c 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 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. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 1335
10. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
11. ^ Wiktionnaire (French Wiktionary), fr.wiktionary.org