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empereur

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Etymology and origin of the French word empereur

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
c. 1050 Vie de saint Alexis More words from the 11th century
Borrowed from
Latin imperator
Ultimate origin
Latin imperō
Etymology tree
inherited borrowed derived
Latin parō
Italian parare
French parade
English parade
Spanish parar
English pare
Latin imperō
Latin imperātor
Romanian împărat
Spanish emperador
French empereur
From the same root
Latin apparō ← parō
Latin disparō ← parō
Latin parābilis ← parō
Latin parātus ← parō
Latin praeparō ← parō
Latin reparō ← parō
Latin sēparō ← parō
Spanish parada ← parō
Latin imperābiliter ← imperō
Latin imperātrīx ← imperō
Latin imperitō ← imperō
Latin imperium ← imperō
Latin imperātōrius ← imperātor

Pronunciation

  • /ɑ̃.pʁœʁ/[1]

Forms

empereur m (plural empereurs, feminine impératrice)[1] Old French nominative emperedre (about 1050), later emperere, and oblique empereor, empereür;[2][3][4][5] empereur served for both cases from the 14th century.[2][3][4][5] An archaic feminine emperière was replaced by impératrice.[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin imperātor (“commander, general, emperor”), in its accusative imperātōrem.[6][3][7][8] Bloch and Wartburg date the borrowing to the time of Charlemagne,[3] and Meyer-Lübke notes that the title and the word lived on in the Eastern Empire but came back in the West only with Charlemagne's coronation as emperor.[9] Rey, by contrast, describes the word as coming down from the Latin accusative.[2]

The Old French nominative emperedre, emperere continues the Latin nominative, stressed on the syllable ⟨ra⟩, and the oblique empereor continues the accusative, stressed on ⟨to⟩.[5][3] The Latin noun is from the supine of imperō (“to command, order”), the verb parō (“to prepare”) with the prefix in-.[2][7][4] Bloch and Wartburg note that only Romanian împărat continues the Latin word by direct inheritance.[3][9]

Cognate with Italian imperatore, Occitan emperador, Catalan emperador and Spanish emperador.[9][5] Middle French borrowed the Latin word again as imperateur (“sovereign”) (about 1470).[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

About 1050 the Vie de saint Alexis uses empereür of Honorius, emperor of the West; about 1100 the Chanson de Roland uses it of Charlemagne.[6][2]

Semantic evolution

The main senses appeared between the mid-11th and mid-12th century: the head of the Holy Roman Empire (Charlemagne, l'empereur à la barbe fleurie of legend), the sovereign of certain states (about 1138) and, above all, the supreme head of the Roman Empire (about 1150), the title imperator having been held by the rulers since Augustus.[2][6] It was also used for an army commander (about 1160), especially of antiquity.[2]

By likeness, in the 17th century it was the title of the pupil who came first in some schools (1643), and Furetière has empereur d'Orient and empereur d'Occident (1690).[2] It also became the name of animals: the swordfish (Rabelais, 1552), regionally a butterfly and the roitelet, and more recently a deep-sea food fish (in the Larousse gastronomique, 1996).[2]

Timeline

  • c. 1050 – Emperedre, empereür in the Vie de saint Alexis, of Honorius.[6][2]
  • c. 1100 – The Chanson de Roland calls Charlemagne emperere.[6][5]
  • c. 1138 – Gaimar uses it for the sovereign of certain states.[6]
  • c. 1150 – Wace uses it for the head of the Roman Empire.[6]
  • 14th century – Empereur becomes the form for both cases.[4]
  • c. 1470 – The learned doublet imperateur is borrowed.[2]
  • 1552 – Rabelais uses it for the swordfish.[2]
  • 1643 – Title of the best pupil in some schools.[2]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The head of the Western Empire and of the Holy Roman Empire, from Charlemagne on: Charlemagne, l'empereur à la barbe fleurie.[10][6]
  2. The title held from Augustus on by the supreme ruler of the Roman Empire: les empereurs romains.[10][5]
  3. The sovereign of certain states; an emperor: l'empereur du Japon.[10][5]
  4. L'Empereur: in France, Napoleon I, later Napoleon III.[10]
  5. An edible fish of the deep sea.[10][2]

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
  3. ^ a b c d e f Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
  4. ^ a b c d Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
  5. ^ a b c d e f g Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
  6. ^ 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
  7. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
  8. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 4, 585a
  9. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
  10. ^ a b c d e Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Empereur.” Etymologically, 14 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/fr/empereur. Accessed 15 Nov. 2026.

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