feuillée

Forms

feuillée f (plural feuillées)^[1] Old French foillee; the spelling feuillée is found in Froissart around 1360.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is formed from French feuille + -ée.^[2][1][4] feuille is from Vulgar Latin folia, the neuter plural of Latin folium (“leaf”) taken as a feminine noun.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found as foillee in the Cambridge Psalter, in the first half of the 12th century, meaning a leafy branch.^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

In Old French it also named a shelter made of branches, as in a 13th-century lay where a girl is led to her lady inside a foillée,^[6] and the TLFi dates the sense “hut of foliage” to Wace's Brut (1155, as foillie).^[2] Froissart describes soldiers who, finding no house, built a loge et feuillée of cut wood.^[6] From 1580 (Montaigne) it also meant the foliage of trees itself;^[3] both senses are now literary or dated.^[2][7]

In the plural, feuillées has meant since 1916 a trench screened with branches that serves as latrines for troops in the field,^[7][5] and later for campers.^[8]

Timeline

• c. 1120 – Foillee “leafy branch” appears in the Cambridge Psalter.^[2][9]
• 1155 – Wace's Brut has foillie for a hut of foliage.^[2]
• c. 1360 – The spelling feuillée is found in Froissart.^[3]
• 1580 – Montaigne uses it for the foliage of trees.^[3]
• 1916 – Les feuillées “field latrines” is recorded.^[7][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. (literary or dated) A shelter formed by the foliage of trees, also the foliage itself: sous la feuillée.^[7][10][2]
2. (in the plural, military) Les feuillées: a trench used as latrines by troops in the field or by campers.^[7][8][1]

Related words

• feuille
• feuillage
• Latin folium

Usage notes

Littré insists on the ll mouillées (a palatal l) and rejects the pronunciation feu-yée.^[6]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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
3. ^ a b c d Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
4. ^ a b Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
5. ^ a b c Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
6. ^ a b c Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
7. ^ a b c d e Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
8. ^ a b Dictionnaire Le Robert en ligne, dictionnaire.lerobert.com (accessed 2024)
9. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
10. ^ Dictionnaire de français Larousse, larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais (accessed 2024)