gendre

Forms

gendre m (plural gendres)^[1] Old French also genre, as in Raoul de Cambrai.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin gener (“son-in-law”), from its accusative form.^{[3][4][5][6][7]} Rey places the Latin word in the family of gignō (“to beget”) and of an Indo-European root meaning “to beget, be born”, and notes that, like all words for the wife's kin, the term for “son-in-law” has no fixed Indo-European form.^[4][8]

Cognate with Italian genero, Spanish yerno, Portuguese genro, Catalan gendre and Old Occitan genre.^[5][4][2] In the Gallo-Romance dialects it competes with beau-fils.^[5][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in the Laws of William the Conqueror (1130), in a clause on a father who finds his daughter in adultery en sa maisoun ou en la maisoun son gendre “in his house or in his son-in-law's house”.^[3][2]

Semantic evolution

The word has kept the sense of its Latin source.^[4] Littré records faire d'une fille deux gendres “to promise the same thing to two people” and the proverb amitié de gendre, soleil d'hiver.^[2] In regional French, especially in the South-East and in Switzerland, aller gendre or entrer gendre means to marry and go to live with the wife's family.^[3]

Timeline

• 1130 – First recorded in the Laws of William the Conqueror.^[3][4]
• 12th century – Raoul de Cambrai has the form genre.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A son-in-law, the husband of one's daughter.^[9][3][1]
2. (regional) Aller gendre, entrer gendre: to marry and live in the wife's family.^[3]

Related words

• genre
• engendrer
• Latin gener

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
3. ^ a b c d e f 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
4. ^ a b c d e f Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
5. ^ a b c Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
6. ^ Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
7. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 4, 96a
8. ^ Picoche, Jacqueline (1991), Dictionnaire étymologique du français, Paris: Le Robert (Les Usuels du Robert)
9. ^ Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert