caméra

Forms

caméra f (plural caméras)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from English camera.^[2][3][1] The Grand Robert and the TLFi take the film sense from the Anglo-American phrase movie camera, shortened to its second word;^[3][4][2] movie (“film”) is itself a shortening of moving picture.^[3][4][2] The English word had passed from optics to photography: it is first recorded in 1668 in the Latin phrase New Latin camera obscura (“dark chamber”), which Kepler had applied to a box forming images through a small hole or a lens, and beside it camera lucida (“light chamber”), later the name of Wollaston's drawing prism; shortened to the single word in the 18th century, it named the photographic apparatus from 1840.^[2][4] The ultimate source is Latin camera (“chamber, vaulted room”),^[1][2] so that the French word is a doublet of chambre, the word inherited from it.^[1][2] Bloch and Wartburg, and the GLLF, describe it as taken from the Latin word for a special technical use.^[5][6]

The word first appeared in French in 1838, in the phrase for the optical drawing instrument, the light chamber of Wollaston;^[4][2] the Grand Robert treats this optical word, taken from scientific Latin, as a separate headword.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Grand Robert dates the apparatus sense to 1872.^[3] Rey dates the sense “photographic camera” to 1894, and the TLFi's first record of the film camera is from 1900, in M. Normand's article Devant le cinématographe in L'Illustration (24 February).^[2][4]

Semantic evolution

Before the cinema the French word named optical devices: the camera lucida from 1838, recorded in the Académie's 1842 supplement, and the camera obscura or dark chamber in 1891.^[4][2] The sense “still camera” (1894), which is the ordinary use of the Anglo-American word, was then displaced in France by the sense “apparatus for taking moving pictures”, which grew with the technique into the film camera (1900).^[2] The still-camera sense remains common in Quebec French and in the French of the Near East;^[2] in France it is an informal and criticized anglicism.^[1]

With television the word was extended to the electronic camera that turns optical images into electronic ones, and then to video cameras.^[4][7] From it came the borrowing caméraman (1919, from English cameraman, 1908), for which French tends to prefer opérateur and, in television, cadreur (1952), and later webcam (1999), from English.^[2]

Timeline

• 1838 – The optical word, which the Grand Robert treats separately, is first recorded in camera lucida, the drawing instrument.^[3][4][2]
• 1842 – The Académie's supplement records caméra.^[4]
• 1866 – The Larousse dictionary records the optical sense.^[6]
• 1872 – The Grand Robert's date for the camera sense borrowed from English.^[3]
• 1891 – Used for the camera obscura.^[2]
• 1894 – Used for a photographic camera.^[2]
• 1900 – First record of the film camera, in L'Illustration.^[4][2][5]
• 1919 – Caméraman is borrowed from English.^[2]
• 1999 – Webcam, a digital camera linked to a computer, is recorded.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A film camera, an apparatus for shooting moving pictures.^[7][4][8]
2. A television or video camera.^[7][8][4]
3. (Quebec, informal) A camera for still photographs.^[2][1]
4. Être derrière la caméra: to direct a film.^[7]
5. Caméra cachée: a hidden camera.^[1]

Related words

• chambre
• caméraman
• caméscope
• Latin camera

Usage notes

The Grand Robert has a second, older headword caméra (1838), an obsolete name of the optical drawing instrument also called chambre claire, taken from scientific Latin camera lucida.^[3][6] The Larousse of the 20th century spelled the word camera without an accent, and Quillet (1965) allows both spellings; the other dictionaries give only caméra.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h 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 r s Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m 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
5. ^ a b Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
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 Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
8. ^ a b Dictionnaire Le Robert en ligne, dictionnaire.lerobert.com (accessed 2024)