chartre

Forms

chartre f (plural chartres)^[1] Old French cartre, then chartre from the 12th century.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old French cartre, inherited from Latin carcer (“prison”).^[2][4][3][5] Picoche places the Latin word, “the barrier closing the chariot course” and above all “prison”, in a family with an Indo-European base meaning an enclosure, which also gave cancellī (“lattice, bars”), the source of chancelier and chanceler.^[6]

Cognate with Italian carcere.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found as cartre “prison” in the Vie de saint Léger, of the second half of the 10th century.^[2][8]

Semantic evolution

In Old French the chartre was a prison, often a dark one: the Roman de la Rose speaks of the man put en chartre oscure.^[7] The word was ousted by prison from about the 15th century, and in the 17th century it was used only in figurative senses.^[4][6]

Furetière called it old in 1690, and recorded tenir quelqu'un en chartre privée, to hold someone captive without the authority of a court.^[2][8] From 1465 en chartre also meant wasting away, as of a sickly child kept from growing as if in a prison;^[8][7] Littré gives chartre as the popular name of mesenteric atrophy, in tomber en chartre.^[8][7] The Académie in 1694 records un enfant en chartre of a consumptive child.^[9]

Timeline

• 950-1000 – Cartre “prison” in the Vie de saint Léger.^[2][8]
• 12th century – The form chartre.^[2][3]
• 1416 – Juvénal des Ursins records a sentence en chartre perpetuelle.^[7]
• 1465 – En chartre “wasting away” in Martial d'Auvergne.^[8]
• 1690 – Furetière calls the word old and records tenir en chartre privée.^[2][8]
• 1694 – The Académie marks it as old.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. (archaic) A prison.^[2][8][1]
2. (by extension) The closed cell of a recluse: un moine en chartre.^[2][8]
3. Chartre privée: a place other than a public prison where someone is held unlawfully, as in tenir quelqu'un en chartre privée.^[2][8][7]
4. (dated) En chartre: emaciated, wasting away, as in tomber en chartre.^[8][7][9]

Related words

• chancelier
• chanceler
• Latin carcer

Usage notes

Chartre is also the old spelling of charte “charter”, a separate word from Latin chartula “little writing”, recorded in the middle of the 11th century in the Vie de saint Alexis;^[2][10] charte appears before 1338, and Nicot in 1606 still entered the word as chartre.^[2][10] The constitutional charter granted by Louis XVIII in 1814 was officially a chartre.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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
3. ^ a b c Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
4. ^ a b Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
5. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 2, 363a
6. ^ a b Picoche, Jacqueline (1991), Dictionnaire étymologique du français, Paris: Le Robert (Les Usuels du Robert)
7. ^ a b c d e f g Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
9. ^ a b c Académie française (1694), Le Dictionnaire de l'Académie françoise, 1st ed., Paris: Coignard
10. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert