grève

Forms

grève f (plural grèves)^[1] Old French greve, also grave (Marie de France).^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *grava (“gravel”), found in Medieval Latin in 876 meaning “beach”.^[4][5][6] The word is pre-Latin, and the TLFi and Bloch and Wartburg rule out a Gaulish origin because it spread far beyond Gallo-Romance, into southern Italy.^[4][7] The Petit Robert and Wiktionary allow a Gaulish source.^[8][1] P. Guiraud instead connected it with gravis (“heavy”), through the idea of coarse sand.^[5][9]

The sense “strike” comes from the Place de Grève in Paris (named in 1260), on the bank of the Seine, where workmen without work gathered to wait for hiring.^[4][7] Cognate with Occitan grava, and the sense “gravel” survives in Champagne and Lorraine, in western dialects as groue and in the south.^[3][7][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first recorded about 1140 in Gaimar's Estoire des Engleis, for flat ground of sand and gravel beside the sea or a river.^[4]

Semantic evolution

From the 13th century the name Grève was given to the square on the Seine in Paris, where executions were held.^[2][8] Because idle workmen waited there for employers, faire grève meant to stand in the square looking for work, and être en grève (before 1850) “to be looking for work”.^[5][3] An isolated record of 1805 already has faire grève for stonecutters leaving work to demand more pay.^[4][9]

About 1845–1848 the word passed from enforced idleness to the refusal to work: a collective, concerted stoppage to press demands.^[5] It then spread to any stoppage made in protest, as in grève de la faim (1906), and gathered a large phraseology: grève générale, grève perlée, grève sur le tas, grève sauvage, grève du zèle.^[5] The derivative gréviste appeared about 1844, though Chateaubriand had used it in 1822 for lovers of executions in the Place de Grève.^[5]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – First record, in Gaimar.^[4]
• 1260 – The Place de Grève is named in Étienne Boileau's Livre des métiers.^[4]
• 1805 – Faire grève in a police report on stonecutters.^[4][9]
• c. 1844 – The derivative gréviste in its modern sense.^[5]
• 1845–1848 – The modern sense “strike”.^[5]
• 1906 – Grève de la faim.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A shore or strand of sand and gravel beside the sea or a river.^[8][10][4]
2. A shifting sandbank: les grèves de la Loire.^[8][5]
3. (historical) La Grève, la place de Grève: the old name of the square of the Hôtel de Ville in Paris, where executions took place.^[8][3]
4. A strike, a collective stoppage of work by employees to press their demands: faire grève, être en grève, droit de grève.^[8][10][4]
5. By extension, a stoppage of an activity in protest: grève de la faim, grève du zèle.^[5]

Word family

• gréviste
• grévette
• antigrève

Related words

• gravier
• gravats
• gravelle
• grave

Usage notes

A homograph grève “greave”, the piece of armour covering the shin, is recorded from 1308; it meant the front of the shin in the 12th century, and the Grand Robert derives it perhaps from graver in its first sense “to make a line”.^[9][11] Littré quotes it from the 12th century and traced it to Arabic, an explanation not repeated by later dictionaries.^[3] In Breton French grève is still used where standard French says plage.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
3. ^ a b c d e Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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 d e f g h i j k l m Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
6. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 4, 254a
7. ^ a b c Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
8. ^ a b c d e f Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
9. ^ a b c d Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
10. ^ a b Dictionnaire Le Robert en ligne, dictionnaire.lerobert.com (accessed 2024)
11. ^ Dictionnaire de français Larousse, larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais (accessed 2024)