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déconforter

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Etymology and origin of the French word déconforter

Confidence
Established
Formation
Derivation
First attested
c. 1050 Vie de saint Alexis More words from the 11th century
Ultimate origin
Late Latin confortō
Derivations

Forms

déconforter (transitive; pronominal se déconforter)[1][2] Old French desconforter;[3][4] Anglo-Norman also descomforter and descunforter.[3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old French desconforter (“to dishearten”), formed from French dé- + conforter in Old French.[1][5][6] The GLLF takes the base as the Old French verb conforter (“to console”).[7] This verb goes back to Late Latin confortō (“to strengthen much”), a word of the Vulgate.[8][9]

Littré compares Old Occitan desconfortar and Italian disconfortare.[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLFi dates the first record to about 1050, in the Vie de saint Alexis, with a direct object: something that disheartens people.[1][10]

Semantic evolution

From Old French on, the verb meant to take away someone's courage, to cast down or grieve, and reflexively se desconforter “to lose heart, despair”;[2][4][11] Littré quotes it from Villehardouin, the Roman de la Rose and Beaumanoir.[2][4][11] The Académie recorded both uses in 1694: “to discourage”, and “to lose courage, grieve” with the pronoun.[12] The GLLF calls the verb classical and already old in the 17th century;[7] it lives on in literary use, as in Péguy (1913).[1]

English discomfort (the verb, about 1300) was first “to deprive of courage”, from the Old French verb;[8] “to make uneasy” dates only from 1856.[8]

Timeline

  • c. 1050 – First record in the Vie de saint Alexis.[1]
  • Early 12th century – The GLLF's first record, in the Pèlerinage de Charlemagne.[7]
  • c. 1300 – English borrows the verb as discomforten.[8]
  • 1694 – The Académie records déconforter and se déconforter.[12]
  • 1913 – Péguy uses it in La Tapisserie de sainte Geneviève et de Jeanne d'Arc.[1]

Meanings

Verb

  1. (dated, literary) To dishearten, discourage or grieve someone.[1][7][2]
  2. Se déconforter: to lose heart, to despair.[1][2]

Word family

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h 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
  2. ^ a b c d e f Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
  3. ^ a b 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
  4. ^ a b c d Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
  5. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
  6. ^ Wiktionnaire (French Wiktionary), fr.wiktionary.org
  7. ^ a b c d Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
  8. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  9. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 2, 1044b
  10. ^ Tobler, Adolf; Lommatzsch, Erhard (1925–2002), Altfranzösisches Wörterbuch, 11 vols., Berlin / Wiesbaden / Stuttgart: Weidmann / Steiner, p. 2:1521
  11. ^ a b Dictionnaire du Moyen Français, version 2015 (DMF 2015), ATILF – CNRS & Université de Lorraine, atilf.fr/dmf
  12. ^ a b Académie française (1694), Le Dictionnaire de l'Académie françoise, 1st ed., Paris: Coignard
Cite this entry

“Déconforter.” Etymologically, 15 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/fr/d%C3%A9conforter. Accessed 15 Nov. 2026.

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