fléau

Forms

fléau m (plural fléaux)^[1] Old French flaiel (late 10th century) and flael (12th century); fléau from the 13th century.^[2][3] Middle French flayau is found in the 15th century.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old French flaiel, inherited from Latin flagellum (“whip, scourge”),^[5][2][6][7] a diminutive of flagrum (“whip, lash”), which is of unknown origin.^[2][8] Already in Classical Latin the word had the figurative sense “calamity”; in Late Latin (4th century) it came to name the tool for threshing grain, and in Church Latin it meant “punishment”, especially punishment sent by God, then “pain, affliction”.^[5][2][6]

Cognate with Old Occitan flagel, Catalan flagell and Italian flagello.^[6][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first recorded, as flaiel, in the late 10th century in the Vie de saint Léger, in the figurative sense “pain, torment”.^[5][2][3]

Semantic evolution

French took over both Latin values.^[2] The war weapon shaped like a flail, the fléau d'armes, is named from about 1130,^[2] and the threshing flail itself from 1178, in the Roman de Renart.^[5][2] By 1549 the word was also used for the beam of a balance;^[5][2] Littré suggests that such rocking parts were named after the to-and-fro movement of the flail.^[4]

From 1580 (Montaigne) it has also named a person or thing so harmful that it seems an instrument of God's anger, after the Latin flagellum Dei “scourge of God”, said in particular of Attila.^[2][3] Bloch and Wartburg trace the phrase back to the Bible, where the Book of Isaiah uses it of Nebuchadnezzar.^[6]

Timeline

• 950–1000 – Flaiel “pain, torment” appears in the Vie de saint Léger.^[5][3]
• c. 1130 – The war flail is recorded.^[2]
• c. 1160 – The Eneas uses the word of a medieval weapon.^[5]
• 1178 – The threshing flail is named in the Roman de Renart.^[5][2]
• 13th century – The form fléau appears.^[2]
• 1549 – Robert Estienne records the sense “beam of a balance”.^[5][3]
• 1580 – Montaigne uses it of a person or thing that is a scourge.^[2][3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A flail for threshing grain, made of a handle and a beater joined by leather straps.^[8][9][5]
2. (historical) Fléau d'armes: a war flail, a short handle with a chain ending in a spiked ball.^[8][9]
3. The beam of a balance, at whose ends the pans hang.^[8][9]
4. A calamity or scourge that strikes a people: la sécheresse est un fléau pour la région.^[9][8]
5. A harmful person or thing, a pest.^[9][2]

Related words

• flageller
• flagellation
• flagelle
• Latin flagellum

Usage notes

In Old French the nominative was li flaels or flaaus and the oblique case le flael.^[4] In Jean Marot fleau is a single syllable.^[4]

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 Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
3. ^ a b c d e f Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
4. ^ a b c d e Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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
6. ^ a b c d Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
7. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 3, 595b
8. ^ a b c d e Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
9. ^ a b c d e Dictionnaire Le Robert en ligne, dictionnaire.lerobert.com (accessed 2024)