collaborer

Forms

collaborer^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Late Latin collabōrō (“to work with someone”),^[2][3][1] formed from com- (“with”) and labōrō (“to work”).^[3][4][5] The Latin verb also gave labourer.^[3]

The TLFi, the DHLF and the Grand Robert date the verb to 1830, in Balzac's letters;^[2][3][4] Bloch and Wartburg and the GLLF give 1842, in Mozin's dictionary.^[6][7] The nouns collaboration and collaborateur are older than the verb: Bloch and Wartburg date them 1771 and 1775 and call them learned formations from the Latin verb,^[6] while Rey dates the noun to 1753 and takes it from Medieval Latin collabōrātiō, a legal term for property a married couple acquired by their joint work.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Balzac writes in a letter of 1830 that nothing makes him want to collaborate with the editor more than some of the articles he has read: the sense is “to work together with one or more people”.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

Littré still defined it narrowly, as working with others on a work of the mind.^[5] Under the German occupation of France (1940–1944) the absolute use took the political sense of working with the enemy, recorded about 1940 and in Julien Green in 1941;^[2][3][7] in the same year the present participle collaborante was used as an adjective.^[2] The same specialisation reached the noun collaboration in 1940.^[3]

Timeline

• 1830 – Balzac uses collaborer.^[2][3]
• 1842 – Mozin records the verb.^[6][7]
• c. 1940 – The political sense “to work with the occupying enemy” appears.^[2][3]
• 1941 – Julien Green uses it in the political sense.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To work together with one or more people on a common task; to collaborate, to cooperate: Les deux chercheuses ont collaboré pendant dix ans.^[8][9][7]
2. (with à) To take part in or contribute to a work or result: collaborer à un journal.^[8][7]
3. (absolute, history) To work with the enemy occupying one's country, especially the Germans in France in 1940–1944.^[8][7][2]

Related words

• collaboration
• collaborateur
• labourer
• Latin labōrō

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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 Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
5. ^ a b Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
6. ^ a b c Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
7. ^ a b c d e f Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
8. ^ a b c Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
9. ^ Dictionnaire de français Larousse, larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais (accessed 2024)