ménagerie

Forms

ménagerie f (plural ménageries)^[1] Middle French mesnagerie.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is formed from French ménage + -erie.^[2][4][5][6] The noun, first Old French manage (1150), is from Old French manoir (“to dwell”), and its forms maisnage and mesnage are due to maisniee (“household”), from Vulgar Latin *mansionata, a derivative of Latin mansiō (“dwelling”).^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first recorded as mesnagerie in Palsgrave (1530), meaning the running of a household and above all of a farm (husbandrie).^[2][6][8] Bloch and Wartburg note that Rabelais used it in 1546 to render the title of Cato's De Re Rustica.^[7]

Semantic evolution

By metonymy it came to mean the place that holds everything belonging to a farm, animals included (Brantôme, about 1585), a sense that Littré already calls old-fashioned.^[2][8][3] Its modern sense, a place where rare, exotic or dangerous animals are kept, appears in 1664 in La Fontaine, when Louis XIV set up a royal menagerie at Versailles.^[2][8][7] The old sense of household management was in use until 1677.^[2][8]

From 1812 it names the collected animals themselves, and since 1831 it has also been used, with irony, for any gathering of people (Balzac's ménagerie de savants).^[2][8] A toy set of animals was called a ménagerie de bois by Flaubert in 1869.^[2] Rey notes that the word is now in decline beside jardin zoologique and zoo, except for circuses and fairground shows.^[8]

English borrowed it as menagerie in 1712.^[9]

Timeline

• 1530 – Palsgrave records mesnagerie “household and farm management”.^[2]
• 1546 – Rabelais uses it for the title of Cato's De Re Rustica.^[7]
• c. 1585 – Brantôme uses it for the place holding a farm's belongings and animals.^[2][8]
• 1664 – La Fontaine uses it for a place where rare or foreign animals are kept.^[2]
• 1712 – English borrows the word.^[9]
• 1812 – It is used for the animals themselves.^[2]
• 1831 – Balzac uses it for a gathering of people.^[2]
• 1869 – Flaubert uses it for a toy set of wooden animals.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A place where rare, exotic or wild animals are kept, for study or to be shown to the public, a menagerie.^[2][5]
2. The animals so collected, as in a travelling show or a circus.^[5][3]
3. (figurative) A large number of animals, or ironically a gathering of people.^[5][2]
4. (dated) The part of a farm holding the livestock and other rural belongings.^[3][6]

Related words

• ménage
• ménager
• ménagère
• manoir
• maison
• English menagerie

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 n o p 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 Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
4. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
5. ^ a b c d Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
6. ^ a b c Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
7. ^ a b c d Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
8. ^ a b c d e f g Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
9. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com