couleuvre

Forms

couleuvre f (plural couleuvres)^[1] Old French culovre, colovre, culuevre and coluevre.^[2][3][4] The spelling couleuvre appears in the 14th century.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old French culovre, inherited from Vulgar Latin *colobra, an alteration of Latin colubra (“female snake”), the feminine of coluber (“snake”).^[2][5][1][6] The Romance forms all go back to the feminine, the older and more often attested form.^[5] Rey thinks that the Latin word may have been borrowed from a Greek word for a snake or a tortoise, and compares a Slavic form; the lack of other cognates could be due to a taboo on an animal often thought evil.^[5] Wiktionary calls the origin of the Latin masculine uncertain.^[1]

Cognate with Walloon colowe, Occitan colobra, Italian colubro, Spanish culebra and Portuguese cobra.^[4] The Portuguese word, borrowed into French as cobra, is its doublet.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first recorded as culovre in Philippe de Thaon's Bestiaire (1121–1135), naming the snake.^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

Already between 1174 and 1200 the Roman de Renart uses it as an insult for a treacherous person.^[2][5] The phrase faire avaler des couleuvres à quelqu'un “to make someone swallow insults or lies” (1667) continues this figurative use: the snake stood for what is twisted (16th century), after the serpent's reputation as a creature of the devil, and the phrase was probably crossed with the figurative sense of couleur “false appearance”, current from the 15th to the 17th century.^[5] In the 18th century it came to be understood as a metaphor of “eating snakes”.^[5]

In the Gallo-Romance dialects the word competes with a feminine serpent in Poitou, central France and French-speaking Switzerland, and with feminine ser or serp in the south.^[7][5] In zoology it once named snakes in general, and now names non-venomous species.^[2]

Timeline

• 1121–1135 – Culovre appears in Philippe de Thaon's Bestiaire.^[2]
• c. 1130 – The Eneas writes it colovre.^[3]
• 1174–1200 – The Roman de Renart uses it as an insult for a disloyal person.^[2]
• 14th century – The spelling couleuvre appears.^[3]
• Late 14th century – The derivative coulouvrine, later couleuvrine, names a long cannon.^[5]
• 1539 – Estienne records coulevree, the plant later called couleuvrée.^[2]
• 1572 – Belleau uses couleuvreau “young snake”.^[2]
• 1667 – Bussy-Rabutin writes faire avaler des couleuvres à quelqu'un.^[2][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A non-venomous snake of the colubrid family, such as the grass snake (couleuvre à collier).^[8][9][1]
2. (obsolete) A snake in general.^[2][1]
3. Avaler des couleuvres: to put up with affronts without protest, also to believe anything one is told.^[9][8]
4. Paresseux comme une couleuvre: very lazy.^[8]
5. (heraldry) A snake as a charge in a coat of arms.^[4]

Word family

• couleuvrine
• couleuvreau
• couleuvrée

Related words

• cobra
• Latin colubra
• English culverin

Usage notes

Littré records couleuvre de pierre for an ammonite.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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 Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
4. ^ a b c d Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
6. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 2, 926a
7. ^ Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
8. ^ a b c Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
9. ^ a b Dictionnaire Le Robert en ligne, dictionnaire.lerobert.com (accessed 2024)