famille

Pronunciation

• IPA: /fa.mij/^[1]

Forms

famille f (plural familles)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin familia (“household; family”), taken over fairly late (1337); the Latin word is derived from famulus (“servant”), an Italic word isolated in Indo-European.^[2][3][4][5] The Roman “familia” was at first all the “famuli”, the slaves of a house, then everyone living under one roof, masters and servants, under the authority of the “pater familias”; only then did it apply to kinsfolk, and in 8th-century Medieval Latin it named a household of serfs.^[2][6] Littré's derivation of “famulus” from an Oscan word for “house” and a Sanskrit root is not taken up by the modern dictionaries.^[7]

Cognate with Italian famiglia, Occitan familha and Spanish familia.^[7][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in 1337, in the Livre Roisin of Lille, meaning the people living under one roof.^[3][2]

Semantic evolution

The word took time to win out over the Old French terms parenté, lignée and mesnie, the feudal household.^[2] Before the 16th century it meant the people of a house, often the servants alone; the idea of close kinship appears in 1580 (Bernard Palissy's bon père de famille), and only in the 18th and 19th centuries did the word join kinship with living together.^[2][3] It named a line of descent in 1611 (Cotgrave) and a group sharing common features in 1658, as in Guez de Balzac's “family” of Plato's followers.^[3][6]

As a term of natural history it dates from 1676, in Pierre Magnol's botany of Montpellier.^[3][6] Modern phrases include famille monoparentale and famille recomposée, des familles after a noun is a homely, familiar touch (un petit gueuleton des familles), and in Belgium attendre famille means to be expecting a child.^[2][9]

Timeline

• 1337 – The people living under one roof, in the Livre Roisin.^[3]
• c. 1355 – Bersuire uses it of a lineage.^[6]
• 1580 – Père de famille, of kinsfolk, in Bernard Palissy.^[3][2]
• 1611 – Cotgrave records it for a line of descent.^[3]
• 1658 – A group sharing common features, in Guez de Balzac.^[3]
• 1676 – Magnol's Botanicum monspelliense uses it as a term of botany.^[3][6]
• 1865 – The adjective familial.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. The parents and their children living together: fonder une famille.^[9]
2. All the people related by blood or marriage: un repas de famille.^[9][1]
3. A line of descent, a lineage: une famille noble.^[3][6]
4. A group of people or things sharing common features: une famille d'esprits, famille de mots.^[3][6]
5. (biology) A taxonomic rank between order and genus.^[1][9]
6. (obsolete) The whole household, servants included.^[6]

Word family

• sous-famille
• familial
• familiariser

Related words

• familier
• Latin familia
• English family

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
3. ^ 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
4. ^ a b 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. 3, 408a
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
7. ^ a b Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ a b c d Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert