métayer

Forms

métayer m (plural métayers, feminine métayère)^[1] Old French moitoier and meiteier (12th century), Middle French mettoyer (about 1398); the form metayer dates from 1480.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is formed from French moitié + -ier, first as moitoier in the 12th century, remade with the present spelling in 1480.^[2][5][4] The base noun is from Latin medietās (“middle, half”), from medius (“middle”).^[6] The Medieval Latin equivalent medietarius is found earlier, in 860 for a man owing only half the tithe and in 1107 for a hereditary tenant on half shares.^[2][5] Wiktionary allows a descent from that Latin word as an alternative, and Littré derived the French word from it directly.^[1][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the Roman de Thèbes (about 1150), moitoier means one who shares by halves.^[2][5][3]

Semantic evolution

By about 1200 the word was specialized for a man who farms land that is not his own and gives the owner half the produce.^[2][5] This kind of tenancy, as against fermage, was very widespread before modern times, and depending on the period and region the share was not always a half.^[5] Littré also notes a loose use for any tenant farmer.^[7]

The related Old French moitoiage “agreement by halves” was remade as métayage in 1840 after métayer, and the old moitierie (about 1200) became mestairie (1500), now métairie, the farm worked by a métayer.^[5]

Timeline

• c. 1150 – Moitoier “one who shares by halves” in the Roman de Thèbes.^[2]
• c. 1200 – The sense “tenant on half shares” in Godefroy de Bouillon.^[2]
• c. 1398 – Mettoyer in the Ménagier de Paris.^[3][7]
• 1480 – The form metayer in an ordinance of the kings of France.^[2]
• 1840 – The derivative métayage appears.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A sharecropper or metayer: a farmer who works an estate under a métayage lease, sharing the produce with the owner.^[2][8][1]
2. (loosely) A tenant farmer.^[7]

Word family

• métayage

Related words

• métairie
• moitié
• mitoyen
• Latin medietas

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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 Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
4. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
5. ^ a b c d e f g Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
6. ^ Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
7. ^ a b c d Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
8. ^ Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert