Etymologically
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mille

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Pronunciation

Forms

mille (invariable)[1] Old French mil (about 1050) and the plurals milie (1080), mile (1145) and mille (1208).[2][3] Mil is still written in dates: l'an mil, mil neuf cent.[2][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old French mile, inherited from Latin mīlle (“thousand”).[2][3][5][1][6] Two Latin forms lie behind the French word: the singular “mīlle” gave Old French “mil”, and the plural mīlia gave “milie”, “mile”, “mille”.[3][2][5] The plural form became a singular about 1360–70 and won out in spelling, but kept the pronunciation of “mil”.[3][2] Rey explains that Latin “mīlle” came to be treated as indeclinable, after decem and centum, while the plural “mīlia” stayed a noun; the Latin word has no known origin.[3] Wiktionary takes it back to Proto-Italic *smīɣeslī and Proto-Indo-European *smih₂ǵʰéslih₂ (“one thousand”).[1]

Cognate with Italian mille, Spanish mil and Portuguese mil.[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Vie de saint Alexis (about 1050) has cent mil for a vast number; in the Chanson de Roland (about 1100) the plural is milie, and Roland's army has set cenz chameilz e mil hosturs muez “seven hundred camels and a thousand moulted hawks”.[2][7]

Semantic evolution

Besides the exact number, mille stands for any great number (1538): mille fois, mille mercis, trente-six mille (1795), des mille et des cents “heaps of money” (1808), and oaths such as mille bombes (1769).[3][8] Je vous le donne en mille “you'll never guess” is recorded in 1761.[9][3] As a noun it is the number or figure 1000 (1690), and mettre dans le mille “to hit the bull's-eye” (1866) comes from the game of tonneau, where the disc that falls into the frog's mouth scores the thousand.[2][3]

The noun mille “mile” (1213) is the same word, from the Roman mille passuum “a thousand paces”; since 1580 it has also rendered the English mile, and the mille marin is the nautical mile.[10][4][11]

Timeline

  • c. 1050 – Cent mil, Vie de saint Alexis.[2]
  • c. 1100 – Plural milie, Chanson de Roland.[2]
  • 1208 – Plural mille, Villehardouin.[2]
  • 1213 – Mille as a measure of distance.[10]
  • 1360–70 – Mille used as a singular.[2]
  • 1538 – “A great number”.[3]
  • 1761 – Je vous le donne en mille.[9]
  • 1866 – Mettre dans le mille.[2]

Meanings

Numeral

  1. A thousand: mille euros, deux mille ans.[1][4]
  2. A great many: mille mercis, je vous l'ai dit mille fois.[11][12]
  3. Je vous le donne en mille: you'll never guess.[12][3]

Noun

  1. The number one thousand, mettre dans le mille, to hit the bull's-eye.[2][3]
  2. A mile: the Roman mile of a thousand paces; the English mile, mille marin, mille nautique, the nautical mile of 1,852 metres.[4][11][1]

Word family

  • millénaire
  • millénium
  • milli-
  • Latin mīlle

Usage notes

Mille is invariable: deux mille.[2][4] In dates mil is also written, l'an mil, mil huit cent onze.[4][11] The noun mille “mile” takes a plural, des milles.[1]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n 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 Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
  4. ^ a b c d e f Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
  5. ^ a b 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. 6/2, 89a
  7. ^ a b Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
  8. ^ 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 Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
  11. ^ a b c d Dictionnaire de français Larousse, larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais (accessed 2024)
  12. ^ a b Dictionnaire Le Robert en ligne, dictionnaire.lerobert.com (accessed 2024)