cracher

Forms

cracher^[1] Old French crachier (early 12th century); the spelling cracher is from the 15th century.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old French crachier, inherited from Vulgar Latin *craccō, formed on an imitative stem ⟨krakk-⟩ that is found in both Romance and Germanic.^[4][3][5][6] The same imitative stem is behind crac and craquer.^[3][5]

Wiktionary allows that the word may have come through Frankish *hrākijan, and compares Old High German hrahhan (“to spew, spit”), Old English hrǣċan (“to retch, cough up”) and Old Norse hrækja (“to hawk, spit”);^[1] Bloch and Wartburg regard such Germanic forms as independent creations.^[7] Littré had derived the verb directly from Germanic, which in his view also explained the dialect forms without initial ⟨c⟩.^[8] Bloch and Wartburg treat those forms, Picard raquer and Walloon rachier, as variants of the same verb, and note that the south of France and the east used another imitative verb, preserved in escopir and Spanish escupir.^[7]

Cognate with Italian scaracchiare and Old Occitan escracar.^[7][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found as crachier in the Old French Lapidaire of Marbode (first quarter of the 12th century), meaning “to throw out of the mouth”; the intransitive use, “to spit”, follows in the Roman de Renart (1178).^[4][3]

Semantic evolution

Around 1450 the past participle appears in tout craché, “the very image of”; the TLFi prefers the explanation that spitting could symbolise the act of generation (Nyrop, followed by the FEW) to Gaston Paris's comparison with two drops of water that look alike.^[4][3] In the second half of the 15th century Coquillart used the verb for saying something with affectation or scorn.^[4]

Spitting into a basin was a medical phrase in the 15th century; figuratively, cracher au bassin meant “to cough up money” by 1536, the source of today's cracher au bassinet.^[4][3] The transitive verb itself took the sense “to pay” in 1809,^[4] and cracher sur, “to treat with contempt”, is recorded by Pomey in 1671.^[4] From 1757 it was said of things that throw out matter, such as molten metal.^[4] In Vidocq (1836) it means “to confess”.^[3] Se cracher, of a plane or a car, is an adaptation of the anglicism crasher.^[3]

Among its derivatives, crachat (about 1260) was used in mockery for a decoration from the Revolution, and the dialect word crachin, a fine drizzle in western France, entered written French in 1880.^[3]

Timeline

• Early 12th century – Crachier in the Lapidaire of Marbode.^[4]
• 1178 – Intransitive use in the Roman de Renart.^[4]
• c. 1260 – The noun crachat.^[3][7]
• c. 1450 – Tout craché “the very image”.^[4]
• 1536 – Cracher au bassin “to pay up”, in Roger de Collerye.^[4]
• 1546 – The noun crachoir.^[3]
• 1671 – Cracher sur “to treat with contempt”, in Pomey.^[4]
• 1757 – Said of a furnace throwing out molten metal, in the Encyclopédie.^[4]
• 1809 – Transitive slang sense “to pay”.^[4]
• 1836 – Vidocq uses it for “to confess”.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive) To spit: to throw saliva or phlegm out of the mouth.^[10][4]
2. (intransitive, figurative) Cracher sur: to show utter contempt for: il ne crache pas sur un bon repas, he is not one to refuse a good meal.^[10] Cracher dans la soupe: to disparage what one benefits from.^[10]
3. (familiar) To pay up, to fork out: cracher au bassinet.^[10][3]
4. (intransitive) Of a pen, a loudspeaker or a radio: to sputter, to crackle.^[10][11]
5. (transitive) To spit out, to eject from the mouth: cracher un noyau d'olive, cracher du sang.^[10][2]
6. (transitive) Of a thing: to throw out, to spew: la cheminée crache une fumée noire.^[2][4]
7. (transitive) To utter with anger or contempt: cracher des injures.^[4][2]
8. Tout craché (adjective): the spitting image of: c'est sa mère tout craché.^[4][3]

Word family

• crachat
• crachement
• cracheur
• crachin
• crachoter
• recracher

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s 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. ^ 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, 1266b
7. ^ a b c d Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
8. ^ Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ a b c d e f Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
11. ^ Dictionnaire de français Larousse, larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais (accessed 2024)