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devant

Etymology and origin of the French word devant

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Confidence
Established
Formation
Compound
First attested
late 10th century, Vie de saint Léger (davant)
Ultimate origin
Latin (de,abante)
Etymology tree
inherited borrowed derived
French de
French devant

Pronunciation

  • IPA: /də.vɑ̃/[1]

Forms

devant[1] Old French de avant (10th century), davant (late 10th century), devant (about 1050).[2][3]

Etymology

It is formed from French de + avant, at first written as a phrase, “de avant”, then welded into “davant” and “devant”.[2][3][4][5] The forms in “de-” appeared early beside those in “da-”, perhaps under the influence of dessous and dessus.[2][3] Bloch and Wartburg call the change a substitution of prefix.[4] The base “avant” continues Late Latin abante, a word of the 2nd century used as adverb and preposition.[4][6]

Cognate with Old Occitan davan, Catalan davant and Italian davanti; Spanish delante and Italian dinanzi are parallel formations on Latin ante.[4][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

As a preposition, davant is found at the end of the 10th century in the Vie de saint Léger, meaning “on the same side as the face of a person, or the visible side of a thing”; the adverb de avant in the 10th-century Sermon sur Jonas still meant “before, earlier”.[2][3]

Semantic evolution

The adverb at first had a temporal sense, “before, previously”, now taken over by auparavant; it survives in some dialects and in the saying être Gros-Jean comme devant (La Fontaine, 1678), “to be no better off than before”.[2][3] The spatial sense, “in front, ahead”, dates from about 1050, and par devant from about 1176.[2]

As a preposition it soon came to mean “in the presence of” (early 12th century), kept in legal par-devant notaire.[2][3] Devant que “before” was used with the subjunctive until the 18th century and with the infinitive until the 17th.[2][3] As a noun, devant meant the lap in Old French; from 1530 it named the front part of an animal or thing, and, from 1671 the front of a house.[3] The hunting phrase prendre les devants is used figuratively from 1660.[3] In African French devant also means “further on, straight ahead”.[3]

Timeline

  • 10th century – De avant “previously” in the Sermon sur Jonas.[2]
  • Late 10th century – Davant as a preposition in the Vie de saint Léger.[2][3]
  • c. 1050 – Devant in the Vie de saint Alexis.[2]
  • Early 12th century – Used in the sense “in the presence of” in the Chanson de Roland.[2]
  • 1181–1190 – Devant que “before” in Chrétien de Troyes.[2]
  • 1530 – The noun names the front part of something.[3]
  • 1642 – Devant de cheminée.[3]
  • 1660 – Prendre les devants in a figurative sense, in Retz.[3]
  • 1678 – Gros-Jean comme devant in La Fontaine.[2]

Meanings

Preposition

  1. In front of, facing: devant la maison.[8][9]
  2. In the presence of: pleurer devant tout le monde, (law) par-devant notaire.[8]
  3. Faced with, confronted with: égaux devant la loi.[8][1]
  4. Ahead of, in advance of: avoir du temps devant soi.[10]

Adverb

  1. In front, ahead: passe devant.[9][1]
  2. Sens devant derrière: back to front.[9][11]

Noun

  1. The front part of something: le devant d'une voiture, chambres sur le devant.[8][9]
  2. The forequarter of beef.[9]
  3. Prendre les devants: to act first, to forestall someone; originally a hunting term.[8][12]
  4. Au-devant de: towards, to meet: aller au-devant de quelqu'un.[8]

Word family

  • devancer

Usage notes

Ci-devant “formerly” was in common use during the Revolution for the former nobles.[4]

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 k l m n 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 Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
  4. ^ a b c d e Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
  5. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 24, 7a
  6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
  7. ^ Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
  8. ^ a b c d e f Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
  9. ^ a b c d e Dictionnaire de français Larousse, larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais (accessed 2024)
  10. ^ Dictionnaire Le Robert en ligne, dictionnaire.lerobert.com (accessed 2024)
  11. ^ Quemada, Bernard, ed. (1959–2006), Datations et documents lexicographiques (Base historique du vocabulaire français, BHVF), Paris: Klincksieck / CNRS / Champion; ATILF
  12. ^ Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
Cite this entry

“Devant.” Etymologically, 18 Oct. 2026, etymologically.com/fr/devant. Accessed 18 Oct. 2026.

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