chantier

Forms

chantier m (plural chantiers)^[1] Old French (northern) gantier (about 1202), cantier (1249); chantier from Rutebeuf (13th century).^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old French gantier, inherited from Latin cantherius (“gelding, poor pack horse; rafter; vine prop”).^{[4][2][5][1][6]} By a common metaphor (compare chevalet, poutre, chèvre) the word for a beast of burden was used in Latin for a rafter and for a support to which vines were tied.^[2][4][5] Bloch and Wartburg and the GLLF take the Latin word as probably borrowed from Ancient Greek κανθήλιος (kanthḗlios, “pack ass”), and Rey compares Ancient Greek κάνθων (kánthōn, “donkey”).^[5][3][2]

Cognate with Italian cantiere and Portuguese canteiro.^[7][8] Littré gave the sense “river bank” an entry of its own and traced it to a root meaning “corner, edge”;^[7] the TLFi keeps it under the same word, perhaps because river banks served to pile up goods.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Jean Bodel's Congés d'Arras (about 1202) has estre sor les gantiers, literally “to be on the trestles”, meaning to be close to death, the dead being laid out on trestles; the word meant a support.^[4][2]

Semantic evolution

The sense “support” was applied to the wooden beams on which casks are laid (Rutebeuf, 1261), a boat carried on a ship (1249), the block on which an object being worked is set (1611) and the blocks bearing the keel of a ship under construction (1690).^[4][2] From this last comes mettre en chantier “to start (a piece of work)” (1753).^[2]

A pile of materials (1400, chantiers de busche “stacks of logs”) led to the yard where timber merchants stacked wood (1553),^[4][2] and in 1680 to the modern sense of an open-air workshop, a building or demolition site.^[4][2] In 1940 the Vichy regime set up the Chantiers de jeunesse.^[2] In Canadian French it named a logging camp.^[2] In familiar French it now also means a mess.^[9][1]

Timeline

• c. 1202 – Estre sor les gantiers in Jean Bodel.^[4]
• 1249 – Barge de cantier, a boat carried on a ship.^[4]
• 1261 – Rutebeuf uses it of the beams casks rest on.^[4][2]
• 1400 – Christine de Pizan uses it for a stack of logs.^[4]
• 1553 – Belon uses it for a timber yard.^[4][2]
• 1680 – Richelet records the sense “open-air workshop”.^[4][2]
• 1690 – Furetière records the keel blocks of a ship under construction.^[4]
• 1753 – The Encyclopédie has être sur le chantier “to be in progress”.^[4][2]
• 1940 – The Chantiers de jeunesse are founded.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A building site or place where construction, demolition or repair work is done: chef de chantier.^[9][10][1]
2. A yard where building materials or timber are stored or worked.^[9][4]
3. Chantier naval: a shipyard.^[9][1]
4. En chantier: under way, in progress, mettre en chantier to start a piece of work.^[9][10]
5. (familiar) A place in disorder, a mess: quel chantier, cette chambre !^[9][1]
6. (technical) A support, especially the beams on which casks are laid in a cellar, or the blocks bearing a ship's keel.^[10][9][4]
7. A volunteer work camp.^[1]
8. (Canada) A logging camp.^[2]

Related words

• Latin cantherius

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 Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
3. ^ a b Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q 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 c Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
6. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 2, 226b
7. ^ a b Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ a b c d e f g Dictionnaire de français Larousse, larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais (accessed 2024)
10. ^ a b c Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert