Etymologically
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chair

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 18 October 2026 at 09:53. This address is a permanent link to this version.
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Pronunciation

  • IPA: /ʃɛʁ/[1]

Forms

chair f (plural chairs)[1] Old French car (about 1050), char (about 1165), charn, then cher, chair is a learned spelling of the 15th century.[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin carō (“flesh; meat”), accusative “carnem”.[5][2][6][3][1][7] The Latin word belongs to the Indo-European root Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (“to cut”) and must first have meant a piece of meat, from animals cut up at sacrifices and meals; from Seneca it was opposed to “animus” “mind”, and Christian Latin used it for human nature and the incarnate God.[2][8][5] carne is a doublet.[1]

Cognate with Italian carne, Occitan carn, Catalan carn, Spanish carne and Portuguese carne.[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Vie de saint Alexis (mid-11th century) uses car for the muscles of the human body and for the flesh of animals as food.[5][2]

Semantic evolution

In the Chanson de Roland (about 1100) a hume de car is a living human being, and the flesh is opposed to the soul; the Christian sense of human, sinful nature is in the sermons of Saint Bernard (late 12th century), and estre de la char de “to be the child of” about 1165.[5][2]

As food it named the meat of warm-blooded animals forbidden by the Church at certain times, whence ni chair ni poisson “neither fish nor fowl” (1690).[2][9] When Middle French char became cher it collided with chère in faire bonne chère, and, from the 17th century viande replaced it in that sense, except in phrases such as chair à saucisse.[5][2][3] Couleur de chair dates from 1677 and couleur chair from 1932.[9]

Timeline

  • mid-11th century – Car, Vie de saint Alexis.[5]
  • c. 1100 – Hume de car, Chanson de Roland.[5]
  • c. 1165 – Char, estre de la char de.[5][2]
  • 15th century – The spelling chair.[2][3]
  • 1677 – Couleur de chair.[9]
  • 1690 – Ni chair ni poisson.[9]

Meanings

Noun

  1. flesh: the soft tissue of the body: en chair et en os, in the flesh, être bien en chair, to be plump.[8][1]
  2. The flesh as opposed to the spirit; carnal desire: le péché de chair.[5][2]
  3. The meat of animals: chair à saucisse, chair à canon; the flesh of fish or fruit.[2][8]
  4. Couleur chair: flesh-coloured.[9]
  5. Ni chair ni poisson: neither one thing nor the other.[2][9]

Word family

  • décharner
  • charnel
  • charnu
  • acharner

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
  3. ^ a b c d Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
  4. ^ Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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
  6. ^ 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, 383b
  8. ^ a b c d Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
  9. ^ a b c d e f Quemada, Bernard, ed. (1959–2006), Datations et documents lexicographiques (Base historique du vocabulaire français, BHVF), Paris: Klincksieck / CNRS / Champion; ATILF