brunette

Forms

brunette f (plural brunettes)^[1] Old French brunete and burnete.^[2][1][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old French brunete, the feminine of brunet,^[1][4] a diminutive from Old French brun + -et.^[2][5] French brun is of West Germanic origin.^[6][4] The sense “song” may have been extended from “dark-haired girl”, because these songs spoke of a pretty brown-haired girl.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The feminine noun is first found about 1155, in the form burnete, in the sermons of Maurice de Sully, for a very fine cloth of an almost black colour, and as brunete in Chrétien de Troyes' Erec et Enide (about 1165–1170).^[2]

Semantic evolution

In Chrétien's Yvain (about 1175) brunet and brunete are used of a person who is somewhat brown, and of a brown-haired girl.^[2] The cloth went out of use and the word was thought old by 1606.^[2] Cotgrave (1611) glosses it as a nut-brown girl, a small bird and a fine black cloth.^[7] In 1752 the Trévoux dictionary records brunettes as love songs.^[2][8] The Grand Robert suggests that the modern use for a dark-haired girl owes something to English brunette, itself taken from French;^[8] English had the adjective by the 1660s and the noun from 1710.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 1155 – Burnete names a dark cloth in Maurice de Sully's sermons.^[2]
• c. 1165–1170 – Brunete appears in Chrétien de Troyes' Erec et Enide.^[2]
• c. 1175 – Used of a brown-haired girl in Chrétien's Yvain.^[2]
• 1606 – Nicot treats the cloth sense as old.^[2]
• 1660s – English brunette is taken from French.^[4]
• 1752 – The Trévoux dictionary records the sense “love song”.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. (dated) A young woman or girl with brown hair, a brunette.^[9][5][2]
2. (history) A fine, dark, precious cloth used in the Middle Ages.^[2][8][10]
3. (dated) A love song, a romance.^[2][8]
4. (Réunion) A pretty young girl with dark skin.^[11]

Related words

• brunet
• brun
• brune

Usage notes

Brunette is also the feminine of the adjective brunet “brownish”.^[2][5] In the 17th century à la brunette meant “at nightfall”,^[12] and in Acadia the phrase still means “at dusk”.^[11]

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 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. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
4. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c Académie française (1992–2024), Dictionnaire de l'Académie française, 9th ed., Paris: Académie française / Fayard / Imprimerie nationale
6. ^ Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
7. ^ Cotgrave, Randle (1611), A Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues, London: Adam Islip
8. ^ a b c d Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
9. ^ Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
10. ^ Dictionnaire du Moyen Français, version 2015 (DMF 2015), ATILF – CNRS & Université de Lorraine, atilf.fr/dmf
11. ^ a b Base de données lexicographiques panfrancophone (BDLP), Trésor de la langue française au Québec / Agence universitaire de la Francophonie, bdlp.org
12. ^ Godefroy, Frédéric (1881–1902), Dictionnaire de l'ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IXe au XVe siècle, 10 vols., Paris: Vieweg / Bouillon