lupin

Forms

lupin (feminine lupine, masculine plural lupins, feminine plural lupines)^[1] Old French had a popular form louvin “of the wolf”, also a plant name (lovain), used until the 17th century.^[2] Anglo-Norman spellings include lupine and lupyn.^[3]

Etymology

The noun is borrowed from Latin lupīnus (“lupin”), literally “wolf's plant”, the noun use of the Latin adjective meaning “of the wolf”, which is derived from lupus (“wolf”).^[4][2][5][6] The plant was perhaps so named for the bitterness of its seeds;^[4][2] Littré instead thought it was because the plant exhausts the soil, or because its barely edible seed was fit only for wolves, comparing German Wolfsbohne “wolf's bean”.^[7] Bloch and Wartburg render the Latin word as “wolf's pea”.^[8]

The adjective, “of the wolf”, is a separate borrowing of the same Latin adjective, recorded from the late 12th century.^[4][2] Old French also had the inherited louvin, which meant “belonging to the wolf” and then “horrible, threatening”.^[2]

Cognate with Italian lupino.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The adjective is the older word: in the late 12th-century chanson de geste Aiquin it describes a heathen as “wolf-headed”.^[2][4] The noun, the lupin plant, is first recorded about 1256 in Aldebrandin of Siena's Régime du corps.^[4][2]

Semantic evolution

In Anglo-Norman, from the second quarter of the 13th century, lupin named the white lupin, its bitter seed and the flour made from it, and perhaps also henbane or aconite.^[3] In the 14th century the surgeon Lanfranc noted that a swelling of the lacrimal fistula was called lupin because it looked like a lupin seed.^[7] Lupin flour was one of the four resolvent flours of ancient medicine.^[7] The Latin form of the wolf's name was also reused in other plant names, beside Middle French lupule (“hop”) (15th century).^[2]

The adjective moved from “wolf-headed” to “done as by a wolf” (1556) and “relating to the wolf” (1840), but it has stayed almost unused.^[2] The TLFi quotes it from Charles Nodier in 1833 and labels it rare.^[4]

Timeline

• late 12th century – The adjective appears in Aiquin, of a “wolf-headed” heathen.^[2][4]
• 13th century – Anglo-Norman texts use the noun for the lupin and its seed.^[3]
• c. 1256 – Aldebrandin of Siena's Régime du corps has the noun.^[4][2]
• 14th century – Lanfranc reports lupin as a name for a swelling of the lacrimal fistula.^[7]
• 1556 – The adjective means “done as by a wolf”.^[2]
• 1840 – The adjective is used in the sense “relating to the wolf”.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A lupin, a leguminous plant with spikes of flowers, grown as fodder, as green manure or as an ornamental.^[9][10][4]
2. The seed of this plant, which yields a flour.^[5][7]

Adjective

1. (rare, literary) Relating to the wolf, lupine.^[11][4]

Related words

• loup
• louve
• Latin lupīnus
• Latin lupus

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
3. ^ a b c Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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 Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
6. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 5, 456b
7. ^ a b c d e f Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
8. ^ Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
9. ^ Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
10. ^ Dictionnaire de français Larousse, larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais (accessed 2024)
11. ^ Dictionnaire Le Robert en ligne, dictionnaire.lerobert.com (accessed 2024)