chameau

Forms

chameau m (plural chameaux, feminine chamelle)^[1] Old French cameil, chameil, chamoil, then chamel.^[2][3][4] Its nominative singular was chamels, chamaus or chameus.^[5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old French chamel, inherited from Latin camēlus (“camel”).^[2][6][3] The first forms cameil, chameil and chamoil were replaced by the form in ⟨-el⟩ through a change of suffix.^[2][4][7] Meyer-Lübke and Wiktionary trace the modern word instead to the variant *camellus, the classical form giving the Old French form in ⟨-oil⟩.^[8][1] Latin took the word from Ancient Greek κάμηλος (kámēlos), which Greek borrowed from a West Semitic language.^[2][3][4]

Cognate with Italian cammello, Spanish camello, Catalan camell, Occitan camel and Picard cameau.^[8][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

About 1100 the Chanson de Roland names cameil among the gifts offered: Set cenz camelz e mil ostors muez (“seven hundred camels and a thousand moulted hawks”).^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

In everyday French the word also covers the dromadaire, a word rare outside zoology, and chameau à deux bosses is used to make clear that the Bactrian camel is meant.^[3] In the late 14th century Froissart uses camel for a cloth of camel hair.^[2]

The female was chameille in Old French (about 1160); the 16th and 17th centuries said chameau femelle, and chamelle was taken up again in the 19th century (Hugo, 1829).^[2][3] From 1828 chameau was an insult to a woman, first meaning “whore” and then, the first sense forgotten, a spiteful person.^[2][3] The hump gave a nautical sense, an air caisson for lifting a ship over shallows (1722, after Dutch kameel).^[3][9]

Timeline

• c. 1100 – Cameil in the Chanson de Roland.^[2]
• 1121–1135 – Chameil in Philippe de Thaon's Bestiaire.^[2]
• c. 1160 – The feminine chameille in Benoît de Sainte-Maure.^[2]
• late 14th century – Froissart uses it for camel-hair cloth.^[2]
• c. 1430 – The derivative chamelier in Alain Chartier.^[2][3]
• 1722 – The nautical sense, from Dutch.^[3][9]
• 1828 – First recorded as an insult to a woman.^[2][3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A camel, a large ruminant with one or two humps.^[9][10][1]
2. (zoology) The two-humped Bactrian camel, as opposed to the dromadaire.^[9][10]
3. Poil de chameau: camel-hair cloth.^[9][10]
4. (familiar) A nasty, spiteful person; also as an adjective: elle est chameau.^[9][11]
5. (nautical) A set of air caissons used to lift a ship over shallows.^[9]

Word family

• chamelier
• chamelle

Related words

• Latin camelus

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 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 f g h i j Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
4. ^ a b c Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
5. ^ a b c Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
6. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 2, 129a
7. ^ Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
8. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ a b c d e f g Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
10. ^ a b c Dictionnaire Le Robert en ligne, dictionnaire.lerobert.com (accessed 2024)
11. ^ Dictionnaire de français Larousse, larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais (accessed 2024)