langueur

Forms

langueur f (plural langueurs)^[1] Old French languor, langur, langor and langour.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old French langor, inherited from Latin languor (“faintness, weakness, lassitude, sickness”),^{[4][5][6][3][7]} the noun of langueō (“to be weak or faint”).^[5][8][3] The Latin word also meant inactivity and slackness.^[4][5]

Cognate with Italian languore, Spanish langor and Old Occitan languor.^[6][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found, probably before 1130, in the Lapidaire alphabétique attributed to Philippe de Thaon, meaning an illness or a state of weakness.^[4][5]

Semantic evolution

The first sense, a bodily weakening that slowly drains a person's strength, largely gave way to less physical ones.^[5] From about 1180, in Thomas's Tristan, it was the dejection caused by love;^[4][5] Jean de Meun's Roman de la Rose calls love langueur toute santeïve, “a languor full of health”.^[4] From 1670, with Racine's Bérénice, it was used of the look of eyes marked by that feeling.^[4][5]

Montaigne used it in 1580 for slackness and idleness, and since Rousseau's Confessions (1765–1770) it has meant a gentle, vague and dreamy sadness.^[4][5] By metonymy it was applied to what inspires that mood, such as a landscape or climate, and pejoratively to a work of the mind lacking strength and warmth (about 1700) or to a stagnating economic activity (1780).^[5][4] All these uses belong to formal language.^[5]

English languor, from Old French langor, is recorded about 1300 in the sense “disease, distress”.^[3]

Timeline

• c. 1130 – Probably first in the Lapidaire alphabétique attributed to Philippe de Thaon, “sickness, weakness”.^[4]
• c. 1180 – Thomas's Tristan uses it for the dejection of love.^[4][5]
• 1269–1278 – Jean de Meun calls love langueur toute santeïve.^[4]
• c. 1300 – English languor is recorded.^[3]
• 1564 – Used for grief and misfortune in an index to the Bible.^[4][8]
• 1580 – Montaigne uses it for idleness.^[4][5]
• 1670 – Racine speaks of the langueur of the eyes in Bérénice.^[4][5]
• 1765–1770 – Rousseau uses it for vague melancholy.^[4][5]
• 1780 – Raynal uses it for the stagnation of an economic activity.^[4][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. (dated) The state of a person whose strength slowly declines: maladie de langueur.^[9][2]
2. (dated) Dejection, a weakening of moral energy caused by nervous fatigue or sorrow.^[9][4]
3. A gentle, dreamy melancholy, a vague sadness: une douce langueur l'envahit au crépuscule.^[9][4]
4. Lack of activity or energy, apathy; of a work, a speech: lack of liveliness or warmth.^[9][4]
5. The quality of a landscape or climate that induces such a mood.^[4]
6. A slowing of activity, as of a business or the economy.^[4]

Word family

• langoureux

Related words

• languir
• languide
• Latin languor

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
3. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ 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
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
6. ^ a b Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
7. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 5, 163a
8. ^ a b Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
9. ^ a b c d Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert