gaude

Forms

gaude f (plural gaudes)^[1] Old French galde.^[2][3] Old French waude.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old French galde, borrowed from Frankish *walda (“weld, dyer's rocket”) in Wiktionary's account.^[1] The TLFi, the DEAF, the Grand Robert and the Petit Robert call the etymon simply Germanic, and the REW calls it Gothic.^{[2][5][6][7][8]} Its Germanic relatives are Middle Dutch woude, Dutch wouw, English weld and German Wau.^[2][5][1]

Judging from how widely it spread, the TLFi, following the FEW, thinks the word must have passed into Vulgar Latin very early, perhaps in the 6th century, with the import of the dye from Germania or through Germanic workers in the cloth industry of the lower Rhine.^[2][9] It took the place of Latin lūtum (“dyer's weld, yellow colour”).^[2] Wiktionary adds that if the Frankish word goes back to Proto-Germanic *walþō, the French word is a doublet of guède “woad”.^[1]

Cognate with Spanish gualda, Catalan gauda (Old Catalan), Portuguese gualde and Italian gualda.^[2][3][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found as galde in the Ornement des dames (manuscript of the second half of the 13th century), naming the plant.^[2] Étienne Boileau's Livre des métiers (about 1268) lists it with madder in a toll list: Semence de guarence ne de gaude ne doit noiant “seed of madder or of weld owes no toll”.^[10][11]

Semantic evolution

In Old French the word named both the plant and the yellow dye drawn from it; merchants sold gaude and waide (woad) for dyeing.^[12][13] Cotgrave in 1611 describes it as the stalk of a plant with which dyers made cloth yellow, and then green by adding woad.^[14]

The plant was still grown in France for dyeing in the 19th century:^[10] Delacroix in 1854 notes a laque de gaude among his colours, and Chevreul in 1861 uses weld on alum-mordanted wool as a standard of yellow.^[2] The word now names a wild plant of sandy soils that was formerly grown for dye.^[15][7]

Timeline

• c. 1268 – Étienne Boileau's Livre des métiers mentions weld seed.^[10][11]
• Second half of the 13th century – Galde names the plant in the Ornement des dames.^[2]
• 1611 – Cotgrave describes it as a dyers' plant.^[14]
• 1732 – Liger uses gaude for a maize porridge.^[2][10]
• 1854 – Delacroix lists a weld lake among his paint colours.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. (botany) weld, dyer's rocket (Reseda luteola), a mignonette of Europe formerly grown for a yellow dye.^{[2][7][15][1]}
2. The yellow dye obtained from this plant.^[2][1]

Related words

• guède
• English weld
• German Wau

Usage notes

Littré and the GLLF have a second word gaude, mostly used in the plural gaudes: in Franche-Comté and Burgundy a porridge of maize flour, like the polenta of northern Italy, named after the yellow colour of weld.^[11][10][3] The TLFi dates it from 1732 (Liger), the DHLF from 1752; the GLLF takes it from the dialects of Burgundy or Franche-Comté, and the REW notes the sense chiefly in the south of France.^{[2][3][10][8]} Cotgrave and Godefroy also record gaude for a light shower of rain or drizzle.^[14][13]

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 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 Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
4. ^ Tobler, Adolf; Lommatzsch, Erhard (1925–2002), Altfranzösisches Wörterbuch, 11 vols., Berlin / Wiesbaden / Stuttgart: Weidmann / Steiner, p. 4:217
5. ^ a b Baldinger, Kurt; Möhren, Frankwalt; Städtler, Thomas, eds. (1971–2021), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'ancien français (DEAF), Heidelberg: Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften; DEAFél / DEAFpré, deaf-server.adw.uni-heidelberg.de
6. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
7. ^ a b c Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
8. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 17, 487b
10. ^ a b c d e f Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
11. ^ a b c Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
12. ^ Tobler, Adolf; Lommatzsch, Erhard (1925–2002), Altfranzösisches Wörterbuch, 11 vols., Berlin / Wiesbaden / Stuttgart: Weidmann / Steiner
13. ^ a b Godefroy, Frédéric (1881–1902), Dictionnaire de l'ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IXe au XVe siècle, 10 vols., Paris: Vieweg / Bouillon
14. ^ a b c Cotgrave, Randle (1611), A Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues, London: Adam Islip
15. ^ a b Dictionnaire de français Larousse, larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais (accessed 2024)