ladre

Forms

ladre m or f by sense (plural ladres)^[1] Old French lazre (about 1160), then ladre (about 1170).^[2][3][4] Bloch and Wartburg give the early form lasdre.^[5] The feminine ladresse is recorded in 1533.^[6][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin Lazarus, a personal name of Hebrew origin.^[6][2][5][7] Wiktionary traces the French form to the accusative Lazarum, stressed on its first syllable, through an intermediate lazdre after the loss of the second vowel;^[1] Littré likewise notes that the stress fell on ⟨la-⟩.^[8] The oldest form, lazre, still shows the origin, and it soon became ladre.^[2]

The usual explanation, followed by the FEW and Bloch and Wartburg, is the poor man covered in sores who lay at the rich man's gate in the parable of Luke 16, his illness being taken for leprosy.^[6][5][2] Another refers to the Lazarus of John 11, the brother of Martha and Mary raised from the dead by Christ, since lepers were regarded in the Middle Ages as the living dead.^[6][2] Scheler wondered whether the sense “miser” came from Italian ladro (“thief”) instead, but Littré found no need for a word of another origin.^[8]

Cognate with Italian lazzaro (“leper”) and Spanish lázaro (“poor man, beggar”).^[5] The name was borrowed again later as Lazare, a doublet.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

It first appears as lazre in the Roman de Tristan (about 1160), meaning a leper;^[2][3] the TLFi dates Thomas's Tristan to the last quarter of the 12th century.^[6] The form ladre is found about 1170 in Floire et Blancheflor.^[3][4]

Semantic evolution

The sense “leprous” lasted into the 16th century, with ladre vert (Rabelais, 1552) and ladre blanc (Paré, 1568) for kinds of lepers.^[6] It now survives only in veterinary use, of a pig infested with parasitic worms: truie ladresse in 1475, porc ladre in 1564.^[2][6]

Because lepers were thought to have lost feeling in the skin, the word came to mean physically and then morally insensitive (1575).^[6][2] From there it narrowed, by 1640, to the modern sense “miserly”, with a shade of indifference to other people's misery that can still be felt in Molière's L’Avare; it became archaic after the classical period.^[2][6] The derivative ladrerie followed the same path, from “leprosy” (1492) to “sordid avarice” (1660).^[2]

The medieval leper house was a maladrerie, an alteration of maladerie (from malade) under the influence of ladre.^[5]

Timeline

• c. 1160 – Lazre “leper” appears in the Roman de Tristan.^[2][3]
• c. 1170 – The form ladre is found in Floire et Blancheflor.^[3][4]
• 1475 – Vieille truie ladresse is said of a diseased sow.^[6][2]
• 1492 – The derivative ladrerie “leprosy” is recorded.^[2]
• 1533 – The feminine ladresse appears in the Lancelot du lac.^[6]
• 1552 – Rabelais uses ladre verd in the Quart Livre.^[6]
• 1564 – Thierry records porc ladre.^[6][2]
• 1575 – Thevet uses it for a morally insensitive person.^[6]
• 1640 – Oudin records the sense “miser”.^[6][2][9]
• 1660 – Ladrerie takes the sense “sordid avarice”.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. (archaic) Suffering from leprosy, leprous.^[6][9]
2. (archaic, figurative) Without physical feeling, and hence morally insensitive.^[6][8]
3. (dated or literary) miserly, stingy.^[6][9]
4. (veterinary) Of a pig or ox: infected with ladrerie, the disease caused by tapeworm larvae.^[6][9]
5. (hunting, archaic) Lièvre ladre: a hare living in marshy ground, with poor-quality meat.^[6][8]

Noun

1. (archaic) A leper.^[6][9]
2. (dated or literary) A miser: un vieux ladre.^[6][9]
3. Ladre vert: a man of sordid avarice, originally a leper disfigured by the disease.^[6]
4. (veterinary, masculine) Lack of pigment in patches of a horse's skin.^[6]

Word family

• ladrerie

Related words

• maladrerie
• lazaret
• Lazare
• Latin Lazarus

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
3. ^ a b c d e Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
4. ^ a b c d Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
5. ^ a b c d e Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x 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
7. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 5, 232b
8. ^ a b c d Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
9. ^ a b c d e f Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert