gageure

Forms

gageure f (plural gageures)^[1] Old French wageure (late 12th century) and wagour (13th century).^[2][3] Anglo-Norman also wrote gajure and wagoure.^[4]

Etymology

It is formed from French gager + -ure.^{[2][5][3][1][6]} The verb gager “to wager, pledge” is derived from gage “pledge”, which Bloch and Wartburg trace to Frankish *wadi, a legal term of the Germanic peoples' customs; they compare German Wette (“wager”).^[7] The early forms with ⟨w⟩ reflect this Germanic origin, and Littré notes a Walloon form wageur.^[2][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

It first appears at the end of the 12th century in the phrase faire wageure, in a poem on the Song of Songs, as a legal term: an agreement by which two or more parties promise to hand over a sum or an object (the stake) to the one who proves right.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

By metonymy the word also named the thing pledged, in an isolated 13th-century wagour and again from 1636 in Monet's dictionary.^[2][3] In the 14th century the Ménagier de Paris speaks of someone making several gaigeures to pay for dinner.^[8]

Madame de Sévigné used soutenir la gageure in 1678 for persevering in a difficult enterprise as if to win a bet, and in 1684 the word itself for an action or opinion so strange or difficult that it looks like a bet to be won.^[2][3] This is now the main sense; the older sense “bet” has become dated in France but is still very much alive in Canadian French.^[3][6] In the sense of a challenge, gageure tends to give way to défi and even to challenge.^[3]

Timeline

• late 12th century – Faire wageure “to make a wager” in a poem on the Song of Songs.^[2]
• 13th century – Wagour names the thing pledged.^[2]
• 1636 – Monet records gageure for the stake itself.^[2][9]
• 1678 – Madame de Sévigné writes soutenir la gageure.^[2][3]
• 1684 – Madame de Sévigné uses it of a seemingly impossible undertaking.^[2][3]
• 1835 – The Académie records the sense “strange or difficult action”.^[9]
• 1837 – C'est une gageure is found in Musset.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. (dated) A wager: a mutual promise to pay the agreed stake if one loses a bet.^[6][2][9]
2. Soutenir la gageure: to accept the wager, and figuratively to keep on with an undertaking despite its difficulty.^[6][2][8]
3. (literary) An action or project so strange or hard that it seems like a bet to be won, a challenge: C'est une gageure de finir ce livre en une nuit.^[6][2][1]
4. (Canada) A bet.^[3]

Related words

• gager
• gage
• engager
• dégager
• Frankish *wadi

Usage notes

The word is pronounced with /ʒy/, as the ⟨e⟩ only marks the soft ⟨g⟩; the pronunciation with /ʒœ/, induced by the spelling, is considered faulty but is frequent.^[3][5][6]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n 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 Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
4. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
5. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
6. ^ a b c d e f Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
7. ^ Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
8. ^ a b c Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
9. ^ a b c d Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse