concombre

Forms

concombre m (plural concombres)^[1] Judeo-French komkobres (plural); Old French cocombre, the form preferred until the 17th century.^[2][3] Littré cites dialect forms such as cocombre (Geneva, Berry), côcombre (Burgundy) and coucombre (Saintonge).^[4]

Etymology

It is probably borrowed from Old Occitan cocombre (also cogombre), from Latin cucumis (“cucumber”), stem ⟨cucumer-⟩.^[2][3][5][6] Bloch and Wartburg start from the Late Latin form cucumer;^[7] Rey calls the Latin word Mediterranean in origin.^[3] The second /k/ was kept by expressive doubling, and the first vowel became nasal by assimilation to the stressed nasal /ɔ̃/, giving /kɔ̃kɔ̃bʁ/.^[2][3] Bloch and Wartburg describe the nasal form as an alteration of the older one.^[7]

Cognate with Italian cocomero, Spanish cohombro, Portuguese cogombro and Catalan cogombre.^[8][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The oldest record is komkobres, in Rashi's French glosses on the Book of Numbers, in a manuscript of 1240;^[2] Rey dates the gloss to about 1100.^[3] In 1256 Aldebrandin of Siena's Régime du corps has both cocombre and concombre, naming the cucumber.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Cocombre remained the more common form until the 17th century: Marguerite Buffet still preferred it in 1688,^[2][3] but Littré in the 19th century called it a provincialism.^[4] The word names both the plant and its fruit.^[3][9]

Figurative uses play on the idea of something insipid or indigestible;^[3] raisonner comme un concombre is recorded in 1801.^[10] In Quebec it is also a familiar word for a fool,^[1] and in Mauritian French avoir la tête concombre means to have a tired, muddled head.^[3]

Timeline

• 1240 – Komkobres appears in a manuscript of Rashi's French glosses.^[2]
• 1256 – Aldebrandin of Siena uses cocombre and concombre.^[2][11]
• 1390 – The Robert dictionaries date the form concombre to this year.^[5][9]
• 1688 – Marguerite Buffet still prefers cocombre.^[2][3]
• 1801 – Raisonner comme un concombre is recorded.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. The cucumber plant, a creeping cucurbit grown for its fruit.^[9][12][1]
2. Its long green fruit, eaten raw in salads or cooked, as in Elle a coupé un concombre pour la salade.^[9][12][1]
3. Concombre de mer: a sea cucumber, a holothurian.^[12][1]
4. Concombre d'âne: the squirting cucumber, Ecballium.^[12][1]
5. (Quebec, familiar) A fool, an idiot.^[1]

Related words

• Latin cucumis

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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 Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
5. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
6. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 2, 1457b
7. ^ a b Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 2364
9. ^ a b c d Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
10. ^ a b Quemada, Bernard, ed. (1959–2006), Datations et documents lexicographiques (Base historique du vocabulaire français, BHVF), Paris: Klincksieck / CNRS / Champion; ATILF
11. ^ Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
12. ^ a b c d Dictionnaire de français Larousse, larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais (accessed 2024)