Etymologically
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datte

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Pronunciation

Forms

datte f (plural dattes)[1] Date, dade (about 1180), datle, dacte[2][3][4][5]; datte from 1575, perhaps after Italian.[2][3][4][5]

Etymology

It is probably borrowed from Old Occitan datil (after 1288) rather than Italian dattero (before 1342), which fits the sounds less well;[2][3][6][7] a Romance intermediary is needed to explain the French form, though the Italian spelling may have influenced “datte”.[2][3] Both come from Latin dactylus (“date”), from Ancient Greek δάκτυλος (dáktulos, “finger”), from the long shape of the fruit.[2][3][6][1][5] The REW takes the French word from Italian.[8] It is a doublet of dactyle.[1]

The link with “dactylus” was still felt in the 17th century, when Furetière wrote that one ought to spell it “dacte”.[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Roman d'Alexandre (about 1180) has date for the fruit of the date palm;[2][3] the 13th-century Livre des métiers lists dates, figues among dried fruit.[5]

Semantic evolution

In the 16th and 17th centuries the fruit was also called prune de datte (Thevet, 1575) or prune datte (Olivier de Serres, 1600); Nicot (1606) has datte.[2][5] The tree is the dattier (datier 1236).[3][6]

Like prune or guigne, the word took a negative figurative value in popular speech: c'est comme des dattes ! “no chance!” (Courteline, 1886), des dattes ! “nothing doing!”, and ne pas en fiche une datte “to do nothing at all” (1897).[3][4][2]

Timeline

  • c. 1180 – Date (Roman d'Alexandre).[2][3]
  • 1236 – Datier, the date palm.[3]
  • 1575 – Prune de datte; the spelling datte.[2][3]
  • 1606 – Datte (Nicot).[2]
  • 1886 – C'est comme des dattes ! (Courteline).[2]
  • 1897 – Ne pas en foutre une datte (Jehan Rictus).[3]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A date, the sweet fruit of the date palm: régime de dattes, datte fourrée.[9][1]
  2. (popular, dated) Des dattes !: nothing doing![4][3]; ne pas en fiche une datte: to do nothing at all.[4][3]

Word family

  • dattier
  • dactyle
  • doigt
  • English date

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ 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
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
  4. ^ a b c d e 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 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. 3, 2b
  8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
  9. ^ Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert