meunier

Forms

meunier m (plural meuniers, feminine meunière)^[1] Old French molnier (1174), mounier, munier, feminine munoiere (1237); meunier from 1260, feminine meunière from 1636.^[2][3][4][5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old French molnier, inherited from Late Latin molīnārius (“miller”), from molīnum (“mill”), the source of moulin.^{[3][2][5][1][6]} Bloch and Wartburg give the Latin word as reconstructed popular Latin.^[5] The form ⟨meunier⟩ (1260) is an alteration of mounier after meule¹,^[5][7] and Rey adds the old word meut (“fly”); the feminine was remade the same way.^[3]

Cognate with Italian mugnaio, Occitan moliner, Catalan moliner, Spanish molinero and Portuguese moleiro.^[8][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first recorded as molnier in 1174, in Guernes de Pont-Sainte-Maxence's life of Saint Thomas Becket, for the man who owns or runs a grain mill.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

Besides the miller, the word has long named things by likeness to the white of flour: a fish, probably the chub, in the second half of the 14th century (as molier, for molnier) and again in 1530, a long-tailed tit (monnier, 1573), a plant disease caused by a fungus that covers the plant with white down (1765), and a grape variety with downy leaves (1832).^[2][3] Littré explains the fish's name by its white flesh or by its living near mills.^[9]

As an adjective it has meant “of the mill or miller” since Cotgrave (1611) and “of the milling industry” since 1874.^[2][3] In cooking, sauce meunière is found in 1884 in Alphonse Daudet's Sapho, and truite meunière in 1933.^[2] The saying il est devenu d'évêque meunier, for a fall in station, is old: Carloix wrote d'evesque devenir mulnier in the 16th century.^[2][9]

Timeline

• 1174 – Molnier in Guernes de Pont-Sainte-Maxence.^[2]
• 1237 – The feminine munoiere “miller's wife”.^[2]
• 1260 – Meunier in Étienne Boileau's Livre des métiers.^[2]
• second half of the 14th century – First used of a fish.^[2][3]
• 1573 – Monnier names the long-tailed tit.^[2]
• 1611 – Cotgrave records the adjective.^[2][7]
• 1636 – Monet records the feminine meunière.^[2]
• 1765 – The Encyclopédie uses it for a plant disease.^[2]
• 1767 – First record of meunerie.^[5]
• 1832 – First used of a grape variety.^[2][10]
• 1884 – Sauce meunière in Daudet's Sapho.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A miller, a person who owns or runs a grain mill or makes flour; feminine meunière, also a miller's wife.^[11][2]
2. Garçon meunier: a miller's helper.^[2][7]
3. The chub, a freshwater fish.^[11][2][9]
4. (dated) Names of birds, notably the long-tailed tit.^[2][9]
5. (botany) A disease of plants caused by a fungus that covers them with white down.^[2]
6. A black grape variety whose leaves are covered with white down.^[2][9]

Adjective

1. Of the mill or of milling: l'industrie meunière.^[11][2]
2. (cooking) (À la) meunière: dusted with flour and fried in butter: des filets de merlan meunière.^[11][2]

Word family

• meunerie

Related words

• moulin
• meule¹
• Latin molīnārius

Usage notes

The Petit Robert cites the children's song Meunier, tu dors.^[11] Littré gives the adjective a separate article, but it is the same word.^[9]

References

1. ^ a b c 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 v w x y 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 Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
4. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
5. ^ a b c d e 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. 6/3, 35a
7. ^ a b c Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ a b c d e f g Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
10. ^ Quemada, Bernard, ed. (1959–2006), Datations et documents lexicographiques (Base historique du vocabulaire français, BHVF), Paris: Klincksieck / CNRS / Champion; ATILF
11. ^ a b c d e Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert