Etymologically
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guère

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Pronunciation

  • IPA: /ɡɛʁ/[1]

Forms

guère (adverb); also guères (dated or poetic)[2][3] Old French guaires, gueres, gaire.[3][1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old French guaires, borrowed from Frankish *waigaro (“much”),[3][4][5][2][6] a form reconstructed from Old High German weigiro (“not very, little”) (with a negative) and Middle High German unweiger (“not very”), which closely matches the French construction.[3][4][1] Wiktionary relates it to Frankish *waigr (“resistant”).[1] The final ⟨s⟩ of the older spelling is the adverbial ⟨s⟩.[5]

Compare Occitan gaire, Catalan gaire and Italian guari, which Bloch and Wartburg take as a borrowing from French.[1][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Chanson de Roland (about 1100) has ne… guaires before an adverb or adjective, “not very”, and before a verb, “not long”.[3][4]

Semantic evolution

Chrétien de Troyes's Erec et Enide (1165–70) uses ne… guere with a verb for “not much”, and Marie de France (about 1170) ne… guaires de with a noun.[3] Old French also had gaire alone, “much” (1188); that use without a negative became rare from the 16th century and went out of central French in the 17th, though Montaigne still writes aillent guiere avant “go very far”.[3][4][7] With a double negative, pas guère, point guère “not much” survives in regional and rural French, chiefly in the West and along the Rhône valley.[4]

Ne… guère que “hardly anything but” is in Commynes (about 1500) and ne… guère plus in Racine (1667).[3] The adverb naguère “not long ago” comes from n'a guère “it is not long”.[5][4]

Timeline

  • c. 1100 – Ne… guaires “not very; not long”, Chanson de Roland.[3]
  • 1165–70 – Ne… guere “not much”, Chrétien de Troyes.[3]
  • 1188 – Gaire “much”, without a negative.[3][4]
  • c. 1500 – Ne… guères que, Commynes.[3]
  • 17th century – The positive use dies out in central French.[4]
  • 1667 – Ne… guère plus, Racine.[3]

Meanings

Adverb

  1. Ne… guère: not much, not very, hardly: ce n'est guère difficile, je n'aime guère ce quartier.[7][1]
  2. Ne… guère: not often, not long: cela ne se dit guère.[7][3]
  3. Ne… guère que: hardly anything (anyone) but: il n'y a guère que lui.[3][7]
  4. (obsolete) Much, very.[7][4]
  5. (regional) Pas guère: not much.[4]

Word family

  • naguère

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f 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 e f g h i j k l m n o 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 g h i j Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
  5. ^ a b c d Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
  6. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 17, 469a
  7. ^ a b c d e Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert