liquidité

Forms

liquidité f (plural liquidités)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin liquiditās (“fluidity”), from liquidus (“liquid”).^[2][3][4][1] The TLFi glosses the Latin noun as the fluidity of the air, the GLLF as its purity.^[2][5] The financial sense, recorded in 1873, comes from liquide in its sense “available, of money”, on the model of the older noun.^[2][3] That sense of the adjective was taken from the Italian finance term liquido in 1509.^[4]

Compare Old Occitan liquiditat, Catalan liquiditat and Italian liquidità.^[6][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Jean Lemaire de Belges uses it about 1510, in the Illustrations de Gaule, for the quality of being liquid.^[2][3] The Anglo-Norman Dictionary has a doubtful earlier example from the mid-13th century.^[8]

Semantic evolution

The physical sense, as in the fluidity of mercury or blood, has stayed a learned word.^[9][6] In literary use it came to mean vagueness, a lack of sharp outline (Proust), and also limpidity, transparency.^[5][2]

With the financial specialization of the adjective, it was used in law from 1873 for the state of an asset that is liquid, that is, readily available.^[3][2][9] In the plural, liquidités came to mean sums of money available at once.^[3][9] Economists define it as the ease with which an asset can be turned into money.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 1510 – Jean Lemaire de Belges uses it of the quality of being liquid.^[2][3]
• 1873 – The financial and legal sense is recorded in Larousse's dictionary.^[2][3][9]
• Before 1922 – Proust uses it figuratively for vagueness.^[5]
• 20th century – The sense “limpidity” is recorded.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. (technical) The quality of being liquid, fluidity.^[9][10][6]
2. (figurative, literary) Vagueness, lack of sharp outline.^[2][5]
3. (literary) Limpidity, transparency.^[5]
4. (law, finance) The state of an asset that is readily available, liquidity; of an investment, the ability to be turned quickly into money.^[9][11][10]
5. (in the plural) Sums available at once, cash in hand.^[9][11][2]
6. Crise de liquidité: a situation in which financial institutions, lacking trust in one another, refuse to lend to each other.^[10]

Related words

• liquide
• liquider
• liqueur
• Latin liquidus

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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 Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
4. ^ a b Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
5. ^ a b c d e f Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
6. ^ a b c Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
7. ^ Wiktionnaire (French Wiktionary), fr.wiktionary.org
8. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
9. ^ a b c d e f g Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
10. ^ a b c Dictionnaire de français Larousse, larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais (accessed 2024)
11. ^ a b Dictionnaire Le Robert en ligne, dictionnaire.lerobert.com (accessed 2024)