Etymologically
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macabre

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Pronunciation

  • IPA: /ma.kabʁ/[1]

Forms

macabre (plural macabres)[1] Middle French danse Macabré, la macabrée danse[2][3][4]; macabre is a misreading of Macabré first printed in 1811 (or 1832).[2][3][4]

Etymology

It comes from the phrase inherited from Middle French danse Macabré “dance of death”, in which the name was misread as “macabre” in the 19th century.[2][3][5][4] The origin of “Macabré” is disputed.[2][5][6] The TLFi and Rey take it for a variant of the biblical name Macchabée, from Latin Maccabaeus: “Judas Macabrés” is found about 1190 and 1250.[2][3][7] Bloch and Wartburg note that a Latin chorea Machabaeorum (“dance of the Maccabees”) is recorded in 1453 for the dance of death, but that the link with the stories of the Maccabees has not been cleared up.[5][8] Rey sets out four ways the name may have reached the dance: from a painter or a poet called Macabré, or from the Maccabees as figures of the dead.[3]

Eastern origins have also been proposed, from Arabic مقبرة (maqbara, “cemetery”) or Classical Syriac meqabberēy (“gravediggers”);[2][3] the TLFi and Rey find them unfounded,[2][3] while the Grand Robert still cites the Syriac word after Dauzat.[9] The GLLF suggests a surname, since the first painted dances of death come from the region of Basel, where the name Macabré is well attested.[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Jean Le Fèvre writes in his Respit de la Mort (1376) Je fis de Macabré la dance, probably “I composed the dance of Macabré”.[2][3]

Semantic evolution

In the 15th century the danse Macabré was a painted or carved allegory of Death leading people of every rank in a round; such paintings decorated the Cemetery of the Innocents in Paris in the 1420s.[3][8][2] After 1433 aller à la danse de Macabré meant “to die”, and Cotgrave (1611) still glosses danse Macabré as “death”.[2]

Once misread as danse macabre, the word became an adjective for anything to do with death and corpses (1842–1843, Gautier), and so “gloomy, sinister”[2][5][7]; le macabre as a noun is from 1855.[2][5][7]

Timeline

  • c. 1190 – Judas Macabrés “Judas Maccabaeus”.[2][5]
  • 1376 – Je fis de Macabré la dance (Jean Le Fèvre).[2][3]
  • 1420s – La danse Macabré is painted at the Innocents in Paris.[3][8]
  • 1453 – Latin chorea Machabaeorum.[5][8]
  • 1611 – Cotgrave records Danse Macabré.[2]
  • 1811 – The misreading Danse Macabre (Champollion-Figeac).[2][3]
  • 1842–1843 – The adjective “relating to death, gloomy”.[2][5]
  • 1855 – Le macabre as a noun (Goncourt).[2]
  • 1878 – First recorded by the Académie.[2]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Danse macabre: the medieval allegory of Death leading people of every rank in a round dance; a danse macabre.[7][2]
  2. Having to do with corpses, skeletons or death; macabre: humour macabre.[7][10]
  3. Gloomy, sinister.[10]

Noun

  1. Le macabre: the macabre, as a genre or style.[7][2]

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 q r s t u 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 j k l Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
  4. ^ a b c d Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
  6. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 6/1, 1b
  7. ^ a b c d e f Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
  8. ^ a b c d Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
  9. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
  10. ^ a b Dictionnaire de français Larousse, larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais (accessed 2024)