foin

Forms

foin m (plural foins)^[1] Old French fein and fain, used until the 15th century, and Lorraine foens (late 12th century).^[2][3][4] The form foin is recorded from the late 15th century, in Coquillart.^[3][5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle French foin, inherited from Old French fein, inherited from Latin fēnum (“hay”).^[2][3][6][1] The classical Latin word is also spelled faenum.^[1][5] The regular Old French form, also spelled fain, had /ei/;^[2][3] the modern form is an eastern dialect form (Lorraine, Burgundy), which the standard language took over, helped by the wish to keep the word apart from faim “hunger” and by the many words in which /wa/ follows a labial consonant, such as avoine and moins.^[2][3] Bloch and Wartburg put the diphthong /wa/ down to the influence of the labial /f/.^[4]

Rey thinks the Latin word may be linked, through a shared stem, with Latin fētus, so that it would first have meant the “product” of the meadow.^[3] Wiktionary traces it to Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁(y)-no-.^[1]

Cognate with Italian fieno, Spanish heno, Portuguese feno and Old Occitan fe.^[4][7][8] Walloon instead uses words of the same type as French feurre or fourrage.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found as fein in the Oxford Psalter, in the first half of the 12th century, for cut and dried grass used as fodder.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

From “hay” the word came to mean grass still standing in the meadow and meant to be mown (about 1360, Froissart); in this sense it is mostly plural, as in faire les foins “to make hay”.^[5][2][9] By likeness it names the silky hairs at the bottom of an artichoke (1865, Littré).^[5][2]

Many phrases use hay as something cheap or as a dense mass: de foin “worthless” was common in the 16th century and old-fashioned in the 17th, chercher une aiguille dans une botte de foin “to look for a needle in a haystack” is recorded in 1690, and bête à manger du foin “very stupid” from the mid-18th century.^[3][5] In avoir or mettre du foin dans ses bottes (late 18th century) it meant money and goods, a sense still alive in Canadian French.^[3] Rhume des foins “hay fever” dates from 1873.^[3]

Faire du foin “to make a racket, cause a scandal” is found in Courteline in 1888;^[10][2] Rey calls it unexplained and thinks it is probably another word.^[3] The interjection foin ! expressing contempt appears in 1579.^[2][5]

Timeline

• 1100–1150 – Fein appears in the Oxford Psalter.^[2][3]
• late 12th century – The eastern form foens is found in the Sermons of Saint Bernard.^[2]
• c. 1360 – Froissart uses it of grass standing in the meadow.^[5]
• 15th century – The form fein, fain goes out of use.^[3][4]
• late 15th century – The dialect form foin is adopted.^[3][5]
• 1579 – Larivey uses foin ! as an interjection.^[2][5]
• 1690 – Chercher une aiguille dans une botte de foin is recorded.^[3][5]
• mid-18th century – Bête à manger du foin appears.^[3][5]
• 1865 – Littré records the hairs of the artichoke.^[5]
• 1873 – Rhume des foins “hay fever” is recorded.^[3]
• 1888 – Faire du foin “to make a scandal” appears in Courteline.^[10][2]

Meanings

Noun

1. hay: grass mown and dried to feed livestock: une meule de foin, rentrer le foin.^[2][9]
2. (often plural) Grass standing in the meadow, to be mown and dried: faire les foins.^[2][9]
3. The silky inedible hairs at the bottom of an artichoke.^[2][5]
4. Rhume des foins, fièvre des foins: hay fever.^[2][9]
5. (familiar) Faire du foin: to make a racket or cause a scandal.^[2][5]

Interjection

1. (dated, literary) Expresses contempt, disgust or vexation, often with de: foin des honneurs !^[2][9][5]

Word family

• sainfoin

Related words

• faner
• fane
• fenaison
• faneur
• Latin fēnum

Usage notes

The origin of the interjection foin ! is obscure: the TLFi sees either an altered fi or a use of the noun, comparing 16th-century de foin expressing contempt,^[2] and the Grand Robert likewise gives an ironic use of the noun or an altered fi.^[11] Bloch and Wartburg derive it from the old phrase bailler foin en corne “to dupe”, after the custom, already Roman, of tying hay to a dangerous bull's horns as a warning, and reject the idea that it is a softened fiens (“dung”), which is not found as an exclamation.^[4] Littré cites Jaubert, who took it from Berry fouin “polecat”.^[8]

Littré records the older figurative phrase il a du foin aux cornes, alluding to that warning on bulls' horns.^[2][8]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u 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 e f g h i j k l m n o p q Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
4. ^ a b c d e f Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
6. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 3, 455a
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ a b c Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
9. ^ a b c d e Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
10. ^ a b Quemada, Bernard, ed. (1959–2006), Datations et documents lexicographiques (Base historique du vocabulaire français, BHVF), Paris: Klincksieck / CNRS / Champion; ATILF
11. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert