cauchemar

Forms

cauchemar m (plural cauchemars)^[1] Middle French cauquemare (about 1375), quauquemaire (15th century) and cauchemare (1564), a feminine noun until the 17th century; the masculine cauchemar is recorded from 1677.^[2][3][4] Paré, in the 16th century, writes coquemar.^[5]

Etymology

It is a compound of Picard origin, formed from Middle French cauche (“presses”) + mare (“nightmare spirit”).^[2][4][3][6] The first element is a form of the verb cauchier (“to press, to tread”) (its imperative, according to Bloch and Wartburg and the Grand Robert), probably a cross between Old French chauchier (“to tread, to press”) and the corresponding Picard cauquier, both from Latin calcō (“to tread”).^{[2][4][3][6][7]}

The second element is Old Picard mare, which translates Latin incubus in a glossary of 1285–1300 and Latin lamia (“vampire”) in another; it was taken from Middle Dutch mare (“ghost that brings bad dreams”).^[2][4][3] The Dutch word corresponds to Old English mare (“spectre”), the second part of the English word nightmare, to Old High German mara and Old Norse mara, from Proto-Germanic *maron-, and is related to Polish mora and Czech můra.^[4][2][1] Wiktionary instead takes the second element from Frankish *marā (“evil spirit”).^[1]

Compare Walloon tchôcmwår.^[1][5] In Languedoc the nightmare is called chaouche-vielio (“the old woman who presses”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Simon de Hesdin's translation of Valerius Maximus (about 1375) describes it as the feeling that something comes to the bed, climbs on the sleeper and holds him so tightly that he can neither speak nor move: “the common people call it cauquemare, but the physicians call it incubus”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

At first the word was a synonym of incube in the sense of a choking, oppressive feeling at night.^[4][2] Because the trouble was often blamed on witches, quauquemaire also meant a witch (1440–1442, Martin Le Franc),^[2][4] and in 1580 Bodin reports that in Valois and Picardy a kind of witch was called cochemares.^[2]

In 1718 the Académie records un homme qui donne le cochemar, a man who gives one the nightmare, and in 1835 it calls a tiresome man un véritable cauchemar.^[2][4] The now usual sense of a frightening or distressing dream is found from 1833, in George Sand's Lélia,^[2][4] and the figurative sense of a frightening idea that keeps coming back from 1845 (Bescherelle).^[8]

The verb cauchemarder dates from 1840, the adjective cauchemardesque from 1902, a remaking of cauchemaresque (1881) with the ⟨d⟩ of the verb, on the pattern of bavard and bavarder.^[4][2]

Timeline

• c. 1375 – Cauquemare appears in Simon de Hesdin's translation of Valerius Maximus.^[2][4]
• 1440–1442 – Quauquemaire “witch” in Martin Le Franc's Champion des dames.^[2][4]
• 1564 – Thierry's French–Latin dictionary has cauchemare.^[2][3]
• 1580 – Bodin names a kind of witch of Valois and Picardy cochemares.^[2]
• 1677 – Miège's French–English dictionary has the masculine cauchemar.^[2][4]
• 1718 – The Académie records a man who “gives the nightmare”.^[2][4]
• 1833 – George Sand uses it for a frightening dream.^[2][4]
• 1835 – The Académie uses it of a tiresome person.^[2][4]
• 1840 – First record of cauchemarder.^[2][4]
• 1902 – First record of cauchemardesque.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A distressing dream dominated by anxiety, a nightmare: faire des cauchemars.^[9][10][11]
2. De cauchemar: frightening, nightmarish, as in une vision de cauchemar.^[9]
3. A frightening obsession, an idea that keeps returning to the mind.^[9][8]
4. (familiar) A person or thing that pesters, obsesses or frightens someone.^[9][11]
5. (dated) A feeling of weight and suffocation during sleep.^[2][5]

Word family

• cauchemarder
• cauchemardesque

Related words

• côcher
• incube
• Latin calcō
• English nightmare

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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 t u v 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. ^ a b c d e Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
4. ^ 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
5. ^ a b c d Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
6. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
7. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 2, 64a
8. ^ a b Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
9. ^ a b c d Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
10. ^ Dictionnaire Le Robert en ligne, dictionnaire.lerobert.com (accessed 2024)
11. ^ a b Dictionnaire de français Larousse, larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais (accessed 2024)