clérical

Forms

clérical (feminine cléricale, masculine plural cléricaux, feminine plural cléricales)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ecclesiastical Latin clēricālis (“relating to the clergy”), formed on the stem of clēricus, the source of clerc.^[2][3][4][5] The TLFi dates the borrowing to 1374, in a 14th-century manuscript.^[2][4] The Grand Robert and the Petit Robert date the word to the 12th century,^[6][7] where Littré's oldest quotation, from a 12th-century text on Thomas the martyr, has the older inherited adjective clergil, recorded from about 1150.^[8][2]

The learned word displaced it and the inherited clerjal (about 1240).^[2][4] Littré compares Old Occitan clerjal.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

In 1374 it is an adjective meaning “relating to the clergy”, in Goulain's translation of the Rationale.^[2]

Semantic evolution

For centuries the word simply described what belonged to the clergy and the ecclesiastical state;^[8][2] Calvin wrote of the tonsure clericale in the 16th century.^[8][2] In the 19th century, in the struggle between the Church and republican laicism, it took the sense “favourable to the clergy and its influence on public life” (1815, according to the Petit Robert; the TLFi's first quotation is from Balzac in 1835).^[7][2][4] This sense became pejorative, the more so once anticlérical appeared in 1866.^[4] Used as a noun, un clérical “a supporter of clericalism” is found in the Goncourts' journal in 1863.^[2]

The same debate produced cléricalisme (1855, at first noted as a neologism of Belgian journalists), cléricaliser (1873) and anticléricalisme (1869).^[4] The neutral sense is now dated, and the words of the family are used mostly in reference to the past.^[2][4]

Timeline

• 1374 – Clerical “relating to the clergy” appears in Goulain's translation of the Rationale.^[2]
• 1517 – The adverb cléricalement is first recorded.^[2]
• 16th century – Calvin writes of the tonsure clericale.^[8]
• 1815 – The sense “devoted to the interests of the clergy” is dated by the Petit Robert.^[7][2]
• 1835 – Balzac uses the adjective in this political sense.^[2]
• 1855 – Cléricalisme is first recorded.^[4]
• 1863 – The noun un clérical appears in the Goncourts' journal.^[2]
• 1866 – Anticlérical is first recorded.^[4][3]
• 1873 – Cléricaliser is first recorded.^[4]

Meanings

Adjective

1. (dated) Relating to the clergy or the ecclesiastical state: tonsure cléricale, ordres cléricaux.^[2][7][8]
2. (often pejorative) Favourable to the clergy and to its influence on political life; relating to cléricalisme: le parti clérical, un journal clérical.^[2][7][5]

Noun

1. A supporter of clericalism: Les cléricaux ont perdu les élections.^[7][5]

Word family

• cléricalisme
• anticlérical
• cléricalement
• cléricaliser

Related words

• clerc
• clergé
• cléricature
• laïque
• Latin clēricus

References

1. ^ a b 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 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 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 Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
5. ^ a b c Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
6. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
7. ^ a b c d e f Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
8. ^ a b c d e f Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette