Etymologically
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famille

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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

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