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dépendre

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French has two verbs spelled dépendre: “to depend”, from Latin, and “to take down”, formed from pendre.[1][2]

dépendre1 to depend

Pronunciation

  • IPA: /de.pɑ̃dʁ/[2]

Forms

dépendre[2]

Etymology

The verb meaning “to depend” is borrowed from Latin dēpendeō (“to hang from; to be attached to; to be under the influence of”), from dē (“down from”) and pendeō (“to hang”) (see pendre).[3][1][4][5] Wiktionary takes it as inherited, from a Vulgar Latin form with a changed conjugation.[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is found from 1154–1173 (about 1130 in the Roman d'Eneas according to the GLLF) in the concrete sense “to hang from”, where modern French says pendre;[3][4] Old French also had il depent a l'ueil “it is imminent”.[3][4]

Semantic evolution

At the end of the 13th century it began to express a link between facts, “to be able to happen only through the action of (someone or something)” (about 1278–1283, Beaumanoir).[3][4] Oresme (1370) uses it for a relation between things that makes them necessary to one another.[3] The other senses developed in the 15th and 16th centuries: “to proceed from” (1490), “to be under (a fief)” (1549), “to be at the mercy of” (before 1544) and “to be under the authority of (someone)” (1580, Montaigne); political subjection, to a person or a State, is from 1636.[3][4] The impersonal cela dépend “it depends” is recorded by Furetière (1690).[4]

Its derivatives include dépendance (1361), dépendant, indépendant and indépendance, and the adverb dépendamment (1671), rare in Europe but common in Quebec, where dépendamment de means “depending on”.[3][2]

Timeline

  • c. 1160 – “To hang from”.[1][3]
  • c. 1283 – “To depend on”, in Beaumanoir.[4][3]
  • 1361 – Dépendance.[3]
  • 1370 – A relation of mutual necessity, in Oresme.[3]
  • 1580 – “To be under the authority of”, in Montaigne.[3][4]
  • 1636 – Political subjection.[3]
  • 1690 – Impersonal cela dépend, in Furetière.[4]

Meanings

Verb

  1. Dépendre de: to depend on, be contingent on: sa venue dépend de vous, (absolutely) ça dépend, it depends.[6][2]
  2. Dépendre de: to rely on (someone) for support; to be under the authority of.[2][6]
  3. Dépendre de: to belong to, be part of.[2][4]
  4. (impersonal) Il dépend de quelqu'un de, que: it is up to someone to: si cela ne dépendait que de moi.[2][6]

Word family

  • dépendance
  • dépendant
  • indépendant
  • indépendance
  • dépendamment

dépendre2 to take down

Pronunciation

  • IPA: /de.pɑ̃dʁ/[2]

Forms

dépendre[2]

Etymology

The verb meaning “to take down” is from French dé- + pendre, with the prefix from Latin dis- (“apart”); compare Medieval Latin dēpendeō (“to take down (from the gallows)”) (about 1200).[7][1][4][5][2] pendre continues forms of Latin pendeō (“to hang”).[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Marie de France's Fables (about 1180) use it for taking down a hanged man: dou lairon qu'il ot despendu “the thief he had taken down from the gallows”; the GLLF cites Chrétien de Troyes (about 1175).[7][1][5][4]

Semantic evolution

Joinville uses it of a man hanged by the arms whom his captors would not take down until they had the castle of Jaffa.[5] It was then said of anything hung up, as in dépendre un tableau.[6][4] The noun dépendeur survives in the familiar grand dépendeur d'andouilles, a tall, foolish or lazy man, since it took a tall man to unhook the sausages hanging in a charcutier's shop.[7]

Timeline

  • c. 1175 – In Chrétien de Troyes.[4]
  • c. 1180 – Despendre a hanged thief, in Marie de France.[7]
  • c. 1200 – Medieval Latin dependere “to take down from the gallows”.[7]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To take down (something hung up): dépendre un tableau, dépendre des guirlandes.[6][4]
  2. To take down (a hanged person).[6][2]

Word family

  • dépendeur

Usage notes

Littré also records an obsolete dépendre “to spend”, from Latin dēpendō (“to pay out”) according to Littré (the FEW files it under dispendō), surviving in the phrase à vendre et à dépendre “entirely at someone's disposal”.[5][9]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m 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 Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
  5. ^ a b c d e Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
  6. ^ a b c d e f Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
  7. ^ a b c d e 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
  8. ^ Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
  9. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 3, 97a