Etymologically
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mobile

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Pronunciation

  • IPA: /mɔ.bil/[1]

Forms

mobile (plural mobiles)[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin mōbilis (“movable; changeable, fickle”),[2][3][4][5] a contraction of “*movibilis”, from moveō (“to move”).[2][3][6] The same Latin word, inherited, gave meuble, of which “mobile” is a learned doublet.[3][6][1] In Latin “res mobiles” were movable goods, and Late Latin had the noun “mobile”, plural “mobilia”, Scholastic Latin had “mobile primum”, the outermost heavenly sphere (about 1250).[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

A Breton ordinance of 1301 has the noun mobile “movable property”, an isolated use;[2][3] the adjective, “that can be moved”, appears in Oresme's Livre du ciel et du monde (1377).[2][7]

Semantic evolution

In medieval astronomy premier mouvable (about 1380) gave way to mobile premier (1448) and premier mobile (1516), calques of the Latin;[2][3][8] from these came mobile for the prime mover of an action: the leading spirit of a war (1662), and premier mobile “what impels someone to act” (La Fontaine, 1682).[2][3] The Académie has mobile alone in 1740, and it became the usual word for a motive, especially in law (le mobile du crime, 1883).[2][3] A body in motion is a mobile from 1639 (Mersenne, after Galileo), and Sartre's Les Mobiles de Calder (1946) took up the name, given by Marcel Duchamp to Calder's sculptures in 1932.[2][3]

The adjective was applied to printing type (caractères mobiles, 1751), to movable feasts (fête mobile, 1636) and to the sliding scale of wages (échelle mobile, 1952);[2][3] militarily it gave colonne mobile (1823), garde mobile (1829) and gendarmerie mobile (1877).[2] From 1448 it also meant “changeable, fickle”, and, from 1749 “always moving” (Buffon's la face mobile de la mer).[2][3] Today un mobile is also a mobile phone, short for téléphone mobile.[1][9]

Timeline

  • 1301 – Mobile “movable property”.[2]
  • 1377 – The adjective, in Oresme.[2]
  • 1448 – Mobile premier, “changeable”.[2]
  • 1509 – Mobilier.[4]
  • 1636 – Fête mobile.[2]
  • 1639 – “Body in motion”, in Mersenne.[2]
  • 1682 – Premier mobile “motive”, in La Fontaine.[2]
  • 1740 – Mobile “motive”, in the Académie.[2]
  • 1829 – Garde mobile.[2]
  • 1946 – Les Mobiles de Calder in Sartre.[2]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Mobile, movable: pièce mobile, cloison mobile, téléphone mobile.[9][1]
  2. Variable: fête mobile, échelle mobile des salaires.[9][2]
  3. (military) Mobile: colonne mobile, garde mobile.[9][2]
  4. Always moving, changing: un visage mobile, population mobile.[9][2]

Noun

  1. A motive: le mobile du crime.[10][1]
  2. (physics) A moving body.[10][1]
  3. A mobile (hanging sculpture or decoration).[10][1]
  4. A mobile phone.[1][10]

Word family

  • mobilier
  • immobilier
  • mobiliser
  • automobile
  • mobilité
  • immobile

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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 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 Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
  5. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 6/3, 3a
  6. ^ a b Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
  7. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
  8. ^ Quemada, Bernard, ed. (1959–2006), Datations et documents lexicographiques (Base historique du vocabulaire français, BHVF), Paris: Klincksieck / CNRS / Champion; ATILF
  9. ^ a b c d e Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
  10. ^ a b c d Dictionnaire de français Larousse, larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais (accessed 2024)