cyprès

Forms

cyprès m (invariable)^[1] Old French ciprès;^[2][3] the spelling cyprès is found in the 14th century, and cyprez in the 16th.^[4][5]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin cupressus, cypressus,^[2][3] the hellenized form that Bloch and Wartburg and the GLLF see as the direct source.^[6][4] Wiktionary instead treats it as inherited through Old French ciprès.^[1] The Latin word is linked to Ancient Greek κυπάρισσος (kupárissos), which Latin also borrowed as cyparissus, in Virgil.^[2][1] The TLFi and Bloch and Wartburg derive the Latin from the Greek;^[2][6] Rey thinks that the sounds rule out a direct borrowing, perhaps through Etruscan, and that Greek and Latin probably took the name separately from a Mediterranean language, Pliny saying that the tree was brought to Tarentum from Asia.^[3] The FEW files the word under this last form.^[7]

Cognate with Occitan cypres, Spanish ciprés, Portuguese cipreste and Italian cipresso.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found as ciprès about 1170 in the Guiguemar of Marie de France's Lais, naming the cypress tree.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Besides the tree, the word named its wood, prized by craftsmen: the 13th-century Livre des métiers lists ciprès among the costly woods a tablet-maker may use, and a 14th-century inventory describes a casket of inlaid cypress.^[5] From the end of the 16th century the tree is a symbol of death and mourning, as in Malherbe,^[2][4] a tradition that goes back to the Greeks and Romans, who linked it with Pluto, god of the underworld.^[3] Cypresses were often planted near graves, and the poetic phrase changer les lauriers en cyprès meant to turn victory into mourning.^[4][5]

In the 19th century botanists took the Latin name cupressus (1802) as the scientific name of the genus.^[3]

Timeline

• c. 1170 – Ciprès appears in Marie de France's Guiguemar.^[2][3]
• 13th century – The Livre des métiers names cypress among the woods of the tablet-makers.^[5]
• 14th century – The spelling cyprès appears in an inventory.^[4][5]
• Late 16th century – Malherbe uses it as a symbol of mourning.^[2]
• 1744 – The rare derivative cyprière “cypress wood” is recorded.^[3]
• 1802 – Botanists adopt the Latin name cupressus.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A cypress, a slender, pyramid-shaped conifer with dark evergreen foliage: Deux cyprès encadrent l'entrée du cimetière.^[8][2]
2. The wood of this tree: un coffret en cyprès.^[8]
3. (figurative, literary) A symbol of death and mourning.^[4][2][5]

Word family

• cyprière

Related words

• cupressus
• Ancient Greek κυπάρισσος (kupárissos)

Usage notes

Littré notes that the final s is sounded in liaison (un cyprès élevé).^[5] The phrase changer les lauriers en cyprès, “to turn victory into mourning”, is poetic.^[4][5]

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 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. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
4. ^ a b c d e f g Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
6. ^ a b Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
7. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 2, 1613a
8. ^ a b Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert