fuseau

Forms

fuseau m (plural fuseaux)^[1] Old French fusel and fuisel (12th century), fuiseau (about 1268); fuseau is a 15th-century remodelling.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is formed from Old French fus (“spindle”) + -el, the noun being from Latin fūsus (“spindle”).^{[4][2][5][6][7]} Bloch and Wartburg consider that the simple noun had disappeared before the earliest texts; the TLFi finds it perhaps in Baudouin de Condé (1240–80) and certainly in a 16th-century text pairing it with the distaff, and it survives in the dialects.^[5][4] Rey notes that the Latin noun was used mostly in the plural and is of unknown origin.^[2]

The Latin word gave Italian fuso, Old Occitan fus, Catalan fus, Spanish huso, Portuguese fuso and Romanian fus.^[8][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLFi first records fusel in the 12th-century Glossary of Tours, as the spindle used in spinning;^[4][2] the GLLF has fuisel earlier, in Gaimar about 1138, meaning a piece of wood or rod.^[3] A 13th-century record is the Parisian Livre des métiers, which speaks of spinners of silk on large fuiseaus.^[9]

Semantic evolution

In the mid-16th century the word took up from Latin the spindle of the Fates.^[2][9] From the end of the 15th century it named the shape of the instrument, long, thin and tapering, as in Coquillart's legs as thin as spindles;^[4][2] Furetière (1690) records fuseaux for long, slender things, as well as the bobbin of lace-making.^[4][2] By analogy it named the quill of the porcupine (1566), a genus of molluscs (1736) and, familiarly, thin legs (1808).^[4][2]

It entered geometry in 1757 (fuseau sphérique, a lune) and geography in fuseau horaire, a time zone, recorded from 1894 or 1911.^[4][2] Since 1938 fuseau has also been a pair of tapering ski trousers.^[4][10] The English fuselage (1909) comes from the French derivative fuselage, from fuselé “spindle-shaped”.^[11]

Timeline

• c. 1138 – Gaimar has fuisel “rod, piece of wood”.^[3]
• 12th century – Fusel “spindle” in the Glossary of Tours.^[4]
• c. 1268 – Étienne Boileau writes fuiseau.^[3][2]
• 15th century – The form fuseau appears.^[2][3]
• 1566 – Used of a porcupine's quill.^[4][2]
• 1690 – Furetière records the lace-making bobbin.^[4]
• 1757 – The geometrical sense appears in the Encyclopédie.^[4][2]
• 1894 – Fuseau horaire “time zone” is recorded.^[2]
• 1938 – Fuseau “ski trousers” is recorded.^[4][10]

Meanings

Noun

1. A spindle: a small turned wooden rod, swollen in the middle and tapering at both ends, used to twist and wind the thread when spinning with a quenouille.^[12][4]
2. (by extension) The shape of this instrument: en fuseau “spindle-shaped”, tapering.^[12][2]
3. A bobbin used in making lace.^[4][1]
4. Tapering ski trousers with a strap under the foot; also pantalon fuseau.^[12][4]
5. (geometry) A lune, the part of a sphere between two great semicircles.^[4][1]
6. Fuseau horaire: a time zone.^[4][1]

Word family

• fuselé
• fuselage

Related words

• fuseler
• fusée
• Latin fūsus

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 Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
3. ^ a b c d e Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r 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
5. ^ a b c Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
6. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
7. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 3, 920b
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ a b Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
10. ^ a b Quemada, Bernard, ed. (1959–2006), Datations et documents lexicographiques (Base historique du vocabulaire français, BHVF), Paris: Klincksieck / CNRS / Champion; ATILF
11. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
12. ^ a b c Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert