Etymologically
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haut

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Pronunciation

  • IPA: /o/[1]
  • IPA (Alsace, Louisiana): [ho][1]

Forms

haut (feminine haute, masculine plural hauts, feminine plural hautes)[1] Alta (980), Old French halt (about 1050), then haut (12th century); Middle French hault.[2][1] The h is aspirated: le haut, en haut.[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old French halt, inherited from Latin altus (“high; deep”), crossed in the northern French area with the Frankish adjective of the same meaning, *hōh, from which it took its initial “h”.[3][4][2][5][1] Bloch and Wartburg date the crossing to the Merovingian period; the “h” is absent from the other Romance outcomes of “altus”.[4][3] Littré, before them, ascribed it to a tendency to add an “h”, as in “huile” and “huit”.[6] The Germanic word is related to German hoch and English high.[2][7]

Latin “altus” was the old past participle of alō (“to nourish, make grow”), hence “grown tall”; it meant “high” and “deep”, both senses of intensity.[3][6] “Alō” goes back to an Indo-European root “*al-” “to nourish, grow”, also seen in German alt and English old.[3][7] The vowel “au” comes from the vocalization of the ⟨l⟩.[3]

Cognate with Italian alto, Old Occitan alt, Catalan alt, Spanish alto and Portuguese alto.[3][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found as alta at the end of the 10th century; about 1050 it means “high in rank or worth”, and the Chanson de Roland (1080) uses it for what is physically high, for a loud voice (voix halte) and for proud words (paroles haltes).[3][2]

Semantic evolution

Most of the Latin senses appear between 1050 and the 13th century.[3] Of people it meant “tall” (about 1165) before grand replaced it, though haute taille remains.[3] The adverb dates from 1080: parler haut, porter haut la tête (1119), voler haut (1160–1174); haut les bras ! (1640) gave way to haut les mains ! (1922).[3] En haut is found about 1120, de haut about 1170, de haut en bas in 1268 and là-haut, at first “in heaven”, in 1553, tomber de haut (1580) became figurative in the 19th century.[3]

About 1121 haut took up the Latin sense “deep” (la haute mer).[3] The general sense “very great” spread in classical French and survives in haute trahison (1669) and haute estime.[3] The noun le haut, the height or upper part of something, appears about 1283 (Beaumanoir); tenir le haut du pavé is recorded in 1640.[8]

Timeline

  • Late 10th century – Alta.[2]
  • c. 1050 – Halt “high in rank”.[3][2]
  • 1080 – Physical height, a loud voice and the adverb, in the Chanson de Roland.[3]
  • c. 1121 – “Deep”.[3]
  • c. 1283 – The noun le haut, in Beaumanoir.[8]
  • 1501 – Haut-bois, later hautbois.[4]
  • 1640 – Haut les bras ![3]
  • 1669 – Haute trahison.[3]
  • 1922 – Haut les mains ![3]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. high, tall; situated high up: une haute montagne, la ville haute.[1][7]
  2. Of a sound or voice: loud; high-pitched: à voix haute.[3]
  3. Great, high in rank, degree or worth: haute trahison, haute couture, haut fonctionnaire.[3][7]
  4. Remote in time; early: le haut Moyen Âge.[1][3]
  5. Of the sea or a river: deep, open; upstream: la haute mer, la haute Loire.[3]

Adverb

  1. High, at a great height: voler haut, haut les mains ![3]
  2. Aloud, loudly; openly: parler haut, penser tout haut.[3]
  3. En haut, là-haut, de haut: above, up there, from above.[3]

Noun

  1. Height: un mur de trois mètres de haut.[8]
  2. The top or upper part of something: le haut de la page; a top worn with trousers or a skirt.[1][8]
  3. Des hauts et des bas: ups and downs.[7]

Word family

  • hautain
  • hauteur
  • haut-le-cœur
  • haut-de-forme
  • haute-contre
  • hautbois
  • hausser
  • là-haut

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f 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 p q r s t u v w x y z Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
  4. ^ a b c Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
  5. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 24, 367a
  6. ^ a b c Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
  7. ^ a b c d e Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
  8. ^ a b c d Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse