cloître

Forms

cloître m (plural cloîtres)^[1] Old French cloistre and clostre, also feminine la cloistre in the 13th century.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old French cloistre, inherited from Latin claustrum (“bolt, barrier, enclosed place”), from claudō (“to close”) (the source of clore).^[4][2][5] In Latin the word, mostly used in the plural, meant a bolt or barrier, then by metonymy an enclosed place, and in Christian Latin the enclosure of a monastery and the monastery itself.^[4][2]

The regular outcome was clostre, which is rarely recorded; the spelling ⟨oi⟩ is probably due to the influence of cloison, whose sense was then wider.^[4][2][6][7] Littré explains the old feminine use of the Old French word from the Latin neuter plural.^[3]

Cognate with Italian chiostro, Old Occitan claustra and Spanish claustro.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found as cloistre in Rashi's French glosses (second half of the 11th century), for the covered gallery around the inner court of a monastery.^[4][8] Benoît de Sainte-Maure has clostre about 1165 in the general sense of an enclosure.^[4][7]

Semantic evolution

The word came in with its Christian sense: the part of a monastery closed to outsiders, especially the covered, columned galleries around an inner court.^[2][6] Bloch and Wartburg note that the rare sense “enclosure” is probably a figurative use, not a survival of the Latin meaning.^[6] By metonymy it named the monastery itself from the 13th century,^[4][2] and, more abstractly, life shut away from the world.^[2]

It also named the enclosure where the canons of a cathedral or collegiate church lived, as in le cloître Saint-Merri in Paris, now a dated sense.^[9][3] The verb cloîtrer “to shut up in a cloister” followed in 1623.^[6][2]

Timeline

• 1050–1100 – Cloistre in Rashi's French glosses.^[4][8]
• c. 1165 – Clostre “enclosure” in Benoît de Sainte-Maure's Roman de Troie.^[4][7]
• 1170–1180 – The derivative cloistrer “cloistered monk” appears.^[4][2]
• 1172–1174 – Guernes de Pont-Sainte-Maxence uses it in his life of Thomas Becket.^[4]
• 13th century – Gautier de Coinci uses it for the monastery itself.^[4]
• 1623 – The verb cloîtrer is recorded.^[6][2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The part of a monastery closed off from the outside world and forbidden to outsiders.^[9][4]
2. The monastery itself, or monastic life: se retirer dans un cloître.^[9][3]
3. A covered gallery with columns around a square court or garden, in a monastery or beside a cathedral, a cloister.^[9][8]
4. (dated) The enclosure where the canons of a cathedral or collegiate church lived.^[9][3]

Word family

• cloîtrer
• cloîtrier

Related words

• clore
• cloison
• clôture
• Latin claustrum

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
3. ^ a b c d e f Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 2, 753a
6. ^ a b c d e Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
7. ^ a b c Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
8. ^ a b c Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
9. ^ a b c d e Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert