dépouiller

Forms

dépouiller^[1] Old French despoillier;^[2][3] despouiller, dépouiller from the 15th century.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old French despoillier, inherited from Latin dēspoliō (“to plunder, strip”),^[4][2][5][1] formed from dē- and spoliō (“to strip, rob”),^[6][2] from spolium (“booty, spoil”).^[3] The Latin compound meant “to plunder”, and must have taken the sense “to strip of clothes” in the imperial period, since that sense is found in nearly all its Romance outcomes.^[2][5]

Cognate with Old Occitan despolhar, Catalan despullar, Spanish despojar and Romanian despuia;^[5][7][1] Italian spogliare continues the simple verb.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the Couronnement de Louis (about 1135) it means to strip someone of clothes or arms.^[4][2]

Semantic evolution

Keeping the idea of removing what covers, it spread to the snake that sheds its skin (about 1265) and to trees losing their leaves.^[2][4] The Latin idea of plunder returned in the sense “to take from someone what he has” (about 1225), and the two senses meet in a recent popular use for robbing someone of clothes under threat.^[2][4]

A figurative sense “to remove” is found from about 1580, and in 1690 Furetière records “to go through a book or register in detail”, the sense of dépouiller un scrutin, counting votes.^[2][4][8] Cotgrave records the butcher's sense, to skin a slaughtered animal (1611), helped by a popular link with peau.^[4][2]

Timeline

• c. 1135 – Despoillier, to strip of clothes or arms, in the Couronnement de Louis.^[4]
• early 13th century – To take someone's goods for oneself.^[4]
• c. 1265 – Brunetto Latini uses it of a snake shedding its skin.^[4]
• 1580 – Figurative “to remove” in Montaigne.^[4]
• 1611 – To skin a slaughtered animal (Cotgrave).^[4]
• 1690 – To examine a book or register in detail (Furetière).^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To skin an animal: dépouiller un chevreuil.^[8][7]
2. To strip someone or something of what covers it: le vent dépouille les arbres.^[8][7]
3. To rob someone, to take away what they own: dépouiller quelqu'un de ses droits.^[8][1]
4. To go through a document in detail: dépouiller son courrier, also dépouiller un scrutin, to count the votes.^[8][1]
5. (literary) To cast off, lay aside what covers one.^[8]
6. Se dépouiller: to divest oneself of something, also of an animal, to shed its skin.^[1][8]

Word family

• dépouillement
• dépouilleur
• dépouille

Related words

• spolier
• Latin spolium

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 Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
3. ^ a b c Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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 c d Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
6. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
7. ^ a b c Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
8. ^ a b c d e f g Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert