connil

Forms

connil m (plural connils)^[1] Also connin or conin;^[2][3][4] Old French cunis (12th century), conil, connil (13th century), Middle French cognil, counil.^[2][3][4] A feminine connille or conille is found in the middle of the 16th century.^[5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old French connil, inherited from Latin cunīculus (“rabbit”).^[2][1][3][6] Pliny held the Latin word to be of Iberian origin.^[2][7] The form connin arose by a change of suffix.^[2][3][5]

Cognate with Spanish conejo and Old Occitan conilh, from which Italian coniglio was borrowed.^[8][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found as cunis in a 12th-century glossary from Tours.^[2][3] About 1160 the Roman d'Eneas already uses conin as a euphemism for a woman's sex, and in Chrétien de Troyes's Erec et Enide (1165–1170) it means the rabbit.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Puns on the obscene sense, current from the 12th century, made the word avoided, and lapin, recorded from the 15th century, replaced it during the 17th century.^[8][7][3] The Académie called it old from 1740.^[2] It survived only in some dialects, at Malmedy, in French-speaking Switzerland and in the Alpes-Maritimes.^[8][7] Some 16th- and 17th-century texts name lapins et connils together, as if they were two animals.^[4] Writers such as Flaubert and Apollinaire later revived it as a literary archaism.^[2][3]

Timeline

• 1100s – Cunis in the glossary of Tours.^[2]
• c. 1160 – Conin in the Roman d'Eneas, as a euphemism.^[2]
• 1165–1170 – Chrétien de Troyes uses conin for the rabbit.^[2]
• 1200s – The forms conil and connil appear.^[3]
• 1740 – The Académie marks it as old.^[2]
• 1911 – Apollinaire uses connin in Le Bestiaire.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. (dated, literary) A rabbit: Un connil détala sous les genêts.^[2][1][5]

Related words

• lapin
• Latin cunīculus

Usage notes

Nineteenth-century dictionaries also record the old verb conniller “to flee or hide like a rabbit, to use subterfuges” and the noun connillière “warren”, figuratively “a subterfuge”.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d 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 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 Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
4. ^ a b c Godefroy, Frédéric (1881–1902), Dictionnaire de l'ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IXe au XVe siècle, 10 vols., Paris: Vieweg / Bouillon
5. ^ a b c Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
6. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 2/2, 1539a
7. ^ a b c d Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
8. ^ a b c Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France