grandir

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ɡʁɑ̃.diʁ/^[1]

Forms

grandir^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from French grand + -ir.^[2][1][3] Littré instead derived it from Latin grandiō (“to make great”), and compares Old Occitan grandir and Italian grandire.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Adenet le Roi's Cléomades (about 1280) uses it intransitively for “to become bigger”: Adés aloit en grandissant la feste (“the feast kept growing”).^[2][5] The Grand Robert and the Petit Robert date it about 1260,^[3][6] and Bloch and Wartburg to the 11th century.^[7]

Semantic evolution

The transitive sense “to make great” is in Georges Chastellain at the end of the 15th century, of a noble house that the duke had tant grandie.^[2][4] The sense “to grow in intensity or importance” is in Chateaubriand (before 1848),^[5] and the moral sense, to grow in wisdom or virtue, in Balzac (1830); grandir en sagesse is recorded by Littré in 1866.^[5]

Timeline

• c. 1280 – Intransitive grandir, in Adenet le Roi.^[2]
• Late 15th century – Transitive “to make great”, in Chastellain.^[2]
• 1694 – Recorded by the Académie.^[2]
• 1830 – Of moral growth, in Balzac.^[5]
• Before 1848 – “To grow in intensity”, in Chateaubriand.^[5]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive) To grow, to get bigger or taller: Il a grandi de cinq centimètres.^[6][1]
2. (intransitive) To grow up.^[1]
3. (intransitive) To increase in intensity or importance: L'obscurité grandit.^[6][5]
4. (intransitive, figurative) To grow morally: grandir en sagesse.^[6][5]
5. (transitive) To make greater; to magnify, make look bigger or nobler.^[1][2]

Related words

• agrandir
• agrandissement
• grand
• grandissant
• grandeur

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g 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 Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
4. ^ a b Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
5. ^ a b c d e f g Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
6. ^ a b c d 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