mets

Forms

mets m (invariable)^[1] Old French mes, written so until the 15th century; the spelling mets is recorded about 1360, in Froissart.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old French mes, inherited from Latin missum (“a sending, a course served at table”).^[4][5][1] The Latin noun is the past participle of mittō (“to send”) used as a noun: properly “something sent”, it came to mean a course served at table and a dish of that course, a sense recorded from the 4th century.^[4][5] The ⟨t⟩ of the modern spelling was added under the influence of mettre.^[4][2][5] Littré called it a spelling mistake, since the old singular had no ⟨t⟩, and rejected an Old High German source for the same reason.^[6]

Cognate with Italian messo (“course of a meal”).^[2][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first recorded as mes about 1140, in Geoffrey Gaimar's Estoire des Engleis, meaning a dish; the same text also uses mes for the throwing of a missile weapon, the older sense of the Latin word.^[4] The Grand Robert and the GLLF date mes to about 1130, in the Roman d'Eneas.^[7][3]

Semantic evolution

The word has kept the sense of a prepared dish that is part of a meal; in France it belongs to formal language, while it is in everyday use in Canada.^[5][8] In Old French it also named a dish served to each guest, and in feudal law the mets de mariage was a lord's right to a dish of every course served at his vassals' wedding feasts.^[6]

The old form mes passed into English, where it became mess, a word later borrowed back into French.^[5][7] From mets French formed entremets (1170), at first a show or diversion between courses, then a side dish; from 1668 it has meant a sweet dish served between the cheese and the dessert.^[5][2]

Timeline

• c. 1130 – Mes appears in the Roman d'Eneas.^[3][7]
• c. 1140 – Geoffrey Gaimar uses mes for a dish.^[4]
• 1170 – The compound entremets is first recorded.^[5]
• c. 1360 – The spelling mets appears, in Froissart.^[3][7]
• 15th century – The spelling mes goes out of use.^[2]
• 1668 – Entremets takes its modern sense of a sweet course.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. (formal) A dish: any prepared food that forms part of a meal.^[8][4] Un mets aux champignons, des mets régionaux.^[8][4][3]
2. By extension, food.^[4]

Word family

• entremets

Related words

• mettre
• Latin mittō
• English mess

Usage notes

Outside formal style the word is more often replaced by plat in France, but it is common in Canadian French.^[8][4] The final ⟨s⟩ is silent, but Littré notes that it is sounded in liaison before a vowel.^[6]

References

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