lignage

Forms

lignage m (plural lignages)^[1] Old French linage.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is formed from French ligne + -age, from the oldest, genealogical sense of the base noun, “line of descent”.^[2][4][3][5] The noun is from Latin linea (“line”).^[6][7]

Littré explains it by an unattested Vulgar Latin *lineāticum.^[7] Old Occitan linhatge is the parallel formation, and according to Meyer-Lübke it passed into Italian lignaggio, Catalan llinatge, Spanish linaje and Portuguese linhagem.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

It first appears as linage in the Vie de saint Alexis (about 1050), of the people who belong to one family line.^[2][8][4]

Semantic evolution

In Old French lignage named all the relatives sprung from a common stock, ancestors and collaterals together, a central idea of feudal society;^[4][3] by about 1196 (Jean Bodel) it also meant a race or family more broadly.^[8] Littré's quotations show it in this sense through the Middle Ages, as in de lignage roial “of royal lineage” in Berte.^[7] From the 17th century it was confined to special uses and was felt as old-fashioned.^[4][3]

In the 20th century historians and ethnologists took it up again for a group descended from one ancestor through a single line,^[4][3] a sense the GLLF dates to the Larousse of 1968.^[8] Biology later used lignage cellulaire for the descent of the tissues traced in embryology.^[9] Its derivative lignager dates from 1411, and lignée (about 1120) differs from it in meaning only a person's descendants.^[4]

The Old French word passed into Middle English as linage (about 1300), the source of English lineage.^[10][11]

Timeline

• c. 1050 – Linage appears in the Vie de saint Alexis.^[2][8]
• c. 1196 – Jean Bodel uses it for a race or family.^[8]
• c. 1300 – Middle English borrows it as linage.^[10]
• 1411 – The derivative lignager is recorded.^[4][9]
• 17th century – The word becomes old-fashioned.^[4][3]
• 1968 – Larousse records the ethnological sense.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. (dated) All the relatives descended from a common stock, a family line: de haut lignage “of noble birth”.^[9][3][2]
2. (anthropology, history) A group of people descended from one ancestor through a single line of filiation.^[9][3]
3. (biology) Lignage cellulaire: the lineage of the various tissues, as traced in embryology.^[9]

Related words

• ligne
• lignée
• ligner
• Latin linea
• English lineage

Usage notes

The Grand Robert has two further words spelled lignage: a 20th-century printing term for the number of lines in a text, from ligne, and a technical word (Littré, 1867) for marking stone or timber with parallel lines before cutting, from ligner.^[3][2] The GLLF also records a feudal right to take wood in a forest (1404), from Old French laigne “firewood”.^[8]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f 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 i Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
4. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. 5, 353b
6. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
7. ^ a b c Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
8. ^ a b c d e f g Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
9. ^ a b c d e Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
10. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
11. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)