Etymologically
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gras

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Pronunciation

Forms

gras (feminine grasse, masculine plural gras, feminine plural grasses)[1] Old French cras beside gras;[2][3] Anglo-Norman also had craz and graz.[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old French gras, inherited from Late Latin grassus, an altered form of Latin crassus (“thick, dense; fat; coarse, dull”).[1][5][3][6] The Latin word first meant “thick” and was then used expressively for “stout, fat”; it displaced pinguis (“fat”), which survives only in Italian pingue.[7][8] The voiced initial /g/, found already in Late Latin, is probably due to grossus (“thick”), the source of gros.[8][9][2][7] Only Picard and Walloon kept the initial /k/ of the Latin word, as in Picard cras and Walloon crâs.[9][5] Wiktionary calls the word a doublet of crasse, which took up the Latin sense “thick”.[1][10]

Cognate with Italian grasso, Occitan gras, Catalan gras, Spanish graso and Romanian gras.[10][5][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found about 1170 in Chrétien de Troyes' Erec et Enide, meaning “well-fleshed, stout”.[7][8]

Semantic evolution

In connection with graisse, which has the same origin, the adjective came to mean “made of fat” (early 13th century) and “containing fat”, as in gras fromages (13th century).[7][8] Cooking gave choux gras, cabbage cooked with fat, whence faire ses choux gras “to profit from something” (1478–1480).[7][8] The noun le gras, the fatty part, dates from about 1265, and le gras de la jambe, the calf, from the 16th and 17th centuries.[7][8] The idea of richness gave the senses “fertile” (13th century, now dated) and “abundant”, and the pleasantly long morning of grasse matinée (1478–1480).[7][8]

Gras meant “coarse, licentious” in 1401, in allusion to the free talk allowed on the jours gras, the days before Lent when the Church allowed meat; hence jours gras (before 1538) and mardi gras (1636).[7][8][3] From the later 16th century it also meant “stained with grease”, and of sounds it was used in parler gras (before 1540), the source of grasseyer.[7][8] Technical senses followed: “too thick” in building (1676) and “bold” in printing (1775).[7][8]

Timeline

  • c. 1170 – “Stout, well-fleshed”, in Chrétien de Troyes.[7]
  • Early 13th century – “Made with fat”, in Reclus de Molliens.[7]
  • c. 1265 – The noun le gras, in Brunetto Latini.[7]
  • 1401 – “Licentious”.[7][8]
  • 1478–1480 – Faire ses choux gras and grasses matinées, in Coquillart.[7]
  • Before 1540 – Parler gras.[7]
  • 1636 – Mardi gras, in Monet.[3]
  • 1666 – Le gras de la jambe, in Furetière's Roman bourgeois.[7]
  • 1775 – Of bold type in printing.[7]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Made of or like fat: matières grasses, corps gras, acides gras.[10][7]
  2. Containing fat or meat: un bouillon gras, jours gras, mardi gras, faire ses choux gras, to profit from something.[10][1]
  3. (dated) Coarse, bawdy: des plaisanteries grasses.[10][1]
  4. Of a person or animal, having much fat, plump: un chat gras, tuer le veau gras, foie gras.[10][1]
  5. Of skin or hair, oily; smeared or soiled with grease: des mains grasses.[10]
  6. Thick and soft like fat: une terre grasse, une toux grasse, a loose, productive cough, plantes grasses, succulents.[10][1]
  7. Thick, heavy: une voix grasse, (printing) caractères gras, bold type.[10][1]
  8. (figurative) Rich, abundant, faire la grasse matinée, to sleep in.[10][1]

Noun

  1. The fat of meat, faire gras, to eat meat.[10][1]
  2. Le gras de la jambe: the calf.[10][7]
  3. (printing) Bold type: en gras.[10][7]

Word family

  • grasset
  • grasseyer
  • grassouillet
  • gras-double
  • gras-fondu
  • grassement
  • engraisser
  • mardi gras
  • foie gras
  • grasse matinée

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
  3. ^ a b c d Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
  4. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
  5. ^ a b c Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
  6. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 2, 1277b
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u 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
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
  9. ^ a b c Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert