merle

Forms

merle m (plural merles, feminine merlesse or merlette)^[1] Old French merle, mostly feminine until the 16th century.^[2][3] The Roman de la Rose has melles.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin merula (“blackbird”),^[2][3][5] beside which Latin also had a rare and late masculine merulus.^[2][3][6] The feminine Latin word is the one that passed into Romance, which explains why the French word was feminine in Old French; the masculine, first found at the end of the 13th century, won only in the 16th.^[3][2] Wiktionary sees probable influence of the masculine in the change.^[1] In Latin the feminine also named a sea fish (compare merlan).^[3][6]

Cognate with Romanian mierlă, Italian merla, Italian merlo, Catalan merla, Spanish mierla and Portuguese melro.^[2][7][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found about 1165 in Benoît de Sainte-Maure's Roman de Troie, where its gender cannot be told.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Already a nickname in Latin, the word entered French surnames for people who liked to sing or whistle, and siffler comme un merle “to whistle like a blackbird” is recorded from 1690.^[3][8] With a qualifier it named other birds, such as merle d'eau (1765).^[3]

From the early 18th century it was used ironically of a man, especially an ugly, unpleasant or disreputable one, as in un vilain merle (Dancourt).^[2][3] The BHVF finds fin merle “crafty man” in Miège (1688).^[9] Since the common blackbird is black, merle blanc (1562) came to mean “rare bird”, something not to be found;^[3][8] Cotgrave already has je vous donnerai un merle blanc in 1611.^[3][8]

Timeline

• c. 1165 – First record, in the Roman de Troie.^[2]
• Late 13th century – First masculine use, in Walter of Bibbesworth.^[2]
• c. 1360 – The derivative merlette appears.^[3]
• 16th century – The masculine gender prevails.^[3]
• 1562 – Merle blanc is recorded.^[3]
• 1688 – Fin merle “crafty man” in Miège.^[9][8]
• 1690 – Furetière records siffler comme un merle.^[8]
• Early 18th century – Vilain merle “unpleasant man” in Dancourt.^[2]
• 1868 – Faute de grives on mange des merles in Littré.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. A blackbird, a passerine bird, black in the male and brown in the female.^[10][1]
2. Siffler comme un merle: to whistle very well.^[10]
3. (figurative, ironic) Un vilain merle, un beau merle: a disreputable person.^[10]
4. Merle blanc: a person or thing that is extremely rare or not to be found.^[10][3]

Word family

• merlan
• merlette

Related words

• merlu
• Latin merula

Usage notes

The proverb faute de grives, on mange des merles means that one makes do with what one has.^[10][8] The feminine gender survives in the dialects of the east and north-east of France.^[6][2] In Picard, le merle was reshaped to forms such as ormel and normel.^[7] Larousse also lists bleu merle for the coat of a dog with black hairs mixed into a white ground.^[11]

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 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 h i j k l m n Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
4. ^ Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
5. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 6/2, 35b
6. ^ a b c Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ a b c d e f g Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
9. ^ a b Quemada, Bernard, ed. (1959–2006), Datations et documents lexicographiques (Base historique du vocabulaire français, BHVF), Paris: Klincksieck / CNRS / Champion; ATILF
10. ^ a b c d e Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
11. ^ Dictionnaire de français Larousse, larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais (accessed 2024)