gars

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ɡa/^[1]
• IPA: /ɡɑ/^[1]
• IPA (Quebec): [ɡɔ]^[1]

Forms

gars m (invariable)^[1] Old French garz.^[2]

Etymology

It is the old nominative of garçon, whose oblique case survived as the ordinary word.^[2][3][4][5] Old French garz, “garçon” is borrowed from Frankish *wrakjo (“vagrant, outcast”), found in the latinized form “waracionem” (7th century) and the personal name “Wracchio” (9th century); Bloch and Wartburg call this origin probable.^[3][4][6] The Frankish word is reconstructed from Old High German hrechjo (“exile; mercenary”) (modern German Recke (“warrior, hero”)), Old English wrecca (“exile, wretch”) and Middle Dutch recke (“banished man”), and goes back to Proto-Germanic *wrakjô.^[3][4][1] Wiktionary places Early Medieval Latin garciō between them.^[1]

Pierre Guiraud rejected the Germanic origin and proposed a Romance “*carptio”, a doublet of Latin carptor (“slave who carved the meat”), from carpō (“to tear”), to account also for Italian garzone and Spanish garzón.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

As garz it is first found about 1130 in Gormont et Isembart as an insult, “knave, wretch, coward”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Wace (1160–1174) uses it for a servant, and the Livre des Rois (about 1170) for a boy or young man.^[2][5] The GLLF dates the sense “young man” in general to Marot, about 1530.^[7] By 1759 it meant a strapping, resolute fellow, Balzac uses it as a familiar form of address (1835), and Frédéric Soulié has le gars Léon (1837).^[2][7][8] The Vendée insurgents called themselves les gars, and their cry was à moi, les gars !.^[9]

The noun garce, formed from it about 1175, became pejorative about the 16th century.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 1130 – Garz, an insult, in Gormont et Isembart.^[2]
• 1160–1174 – “Servant”, in Wace.^[2]
• c. 1170 – “Boy, young man”, in the Livre des Rois.^[2]
• c. 1175 – The derivative garce.^[4]
• 1759 – “Strapping fellow”.^[2]
• 1835 – A familiar form of address, in Balzac.^[2]
• 1837 – Le gars Léon, in Soulié.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. (familiar) A lad, young man; a guy: un brave gars, un drôle de gars.^[10][11]
2. (familiar) A strapping, resolute fellow: ça, c'est un gars !.^[11][10]
3. (familiar) A son: notre gars est à l'armée.^[11][7]
4. (familiar) As a form of address: salut les gars !, mon petit gars.^[11][12]
5. (dated or regional) Before a first name: le gars Ernest.^[10]

Word family

• garce

Related words

• garçon
• English wretch

Usage notes

It is pronounced [ga] or [gɑ]; the ⟨r⟩ fell silent in ordinary speech in the 16th and 17th centuries, and [gar] was already called provincial in the 19th.^[2][9] In Quebec it is pronounced [gɔ].^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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 Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
4. ^ a b c d e Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
5. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
6. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 17, 617b
7. ^ a b c Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
8. ^ Quemada, Bernard, ed. (1959–2006), Datations et documents lexicographiques (Base historique du vocabulaire français, BHVF), Paris: Klincksieck / CNRS / Champion; ATILF
9. ^ a b Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
10. ^ a b c Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
11. ^ a b c d Dictionnaire de français Larousse, larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais (accessed 2024)
12. ^ Dictionnaire Le Robert en ligne, dictionnaire.lerobert.com (accessed 2024)