fanfarer

Forms

fanfarer (intransitive; dated also transitive)^[1][2]

Etymology

It is formed from French fanfare + -er.^[1][3][4] The noun fanfare is probably onomatopoeic.^[1][3][5] The verb is recorded slightly before the noun: the TLFi dates the verb to 1534–1535 and the noun to 1542, and Bloch and Wartburg give 1532 and 1546.^[1][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its first record is in Rabelais's Gargantua (1534–1535), meaning to sound the trumpet.^[1] The GLLF and Bloch–Wartburg date the Rabelais use to 1532.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

Cotgrave (1611) glosses it as to sound like trumpets, to challenge one another with trumpets, and also to brag and make a great flourish.^[6] Littré quotes Sully for trumpets made to sound, and a 16th-century text in which a victory is phanpharée, celebrated with fanfares.^[7] In the 19th century it was a dated word for sounding the horn or trumpet, as in Aloysius Bertrand (1841), and it was used figuratively for boasting, close to fanfaronner; the TLFi quotes Rostand (1910).^[1]

Timeline

• 1534–1535 – First record, in Rabelais's Gargantua.^[1]
• 1611 – Cotgrave gives the senses “sound like trumpets” and “brag”.^[6]
• 1841 – Aloysius Bertrand uses it of hunting horns.^[1]
• 1910 – Rostand uses it figuratively in Chantecler.^[1]

Meanings

Verb

1. (dated, intransitive) To sound the trumpet, horn or hunting horn.^[1]
2. (figurative, intransitive) To boast, to brag.^[1][6]
3. (dated, transitive) To celebrate with fanfares.^[2][7]

Related words

• fanfare
• fanfaron
• fanfaronner

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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
2. ^ a b c Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
3. ^ a b c d Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
4. ^ Wiktionnaire (French Wiktionary), fr.wiktionary.org
5. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 23, 145b
6. ^ a b c Cotgrave, Randle (1611), A Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues, London: Adam Islip
7. ^ a b Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette