infirmerie

Forms

infirmerie f (plural infirmeries)^[1] Old French enfermerie (13th century to 1675), also written enfremerie.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is formed from French infirmier + -erie.^[2] It replaced the older enfermerie, formed from enfermier, the old form of infirmier;^[2][5] the Grand Robert and the Petit Robert describe the word as the old one remade after infirme or after Latin.^[6][7] The Old French noun itself comes from enferme “sick, weak”.^[8]

Cognate with Old Occitan efermaria, Spanish enfermería, Portuguese enfermaria and Italian infermeria.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The old form appears about 1260, written enfremerie, in Adam de la Halle, for a part of a house set aside for the sick.^[3] In the 13th-century Miracles de saint Louis a madwoman is brought back en l’enfermerie and tied to a bed.^[9] The modern form infirmerie is first recorded in a document of 1509.^[2][7]

Semantic evolution

The word has always named a room or building where the sick of a community are looked after: in a convent, a school, a barracks, and, later, a ship.^[9][3] It went out of use for a charitable institution in the 19th century.^[4] From 1829 it is used, jokingly, of a house where everyone is ill.^[4][3]

Unlike infirme and infirmité, which belong to the vocabulary of illness, infirmerie and infirmier are no longer felt to be connected with infirme or with enfermer, and belong to the vocabulary of hospital administration.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 1260 – Adam de la Halle uses the form enfremerie.^[3]
• 13th century – Enfermerie appears in the Miracles de saint Louis.^[9]
• 1509 – The form infirmerie is first recorded.^[2][4]
• 1606 – Crespin records infirmerie.^[3][8]
• 1675 – Oudin still gives both enfermerie and infirmerie.^[2]
• 1829 – Boiste records the joking sense “house full of sick people”.^[3][4]

Meanings

Noun

1. An infirmary, a room in a school, barracks, firm or other community where the sick and the slightly injured are cared for: l’infirmerie de l’usine.^[7][2]
2. (familiar, humorous) A place where many people are ill.^[3][4]

Related words

• infirmier
• infirme
• infirmité
• Latin īnfirmus

References

1. ^ 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 c d e f g h Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
4. ^ a b c d e f g Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
5. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 4, 670b
6. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
7. ^ a b c Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
8. ^ a b Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
9. ^ a b c d Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette