moyeu

Forms

moyeu m (plural moyeux)^[1] Old French moieus (plural), moiel, muiel and moyuel; the spelling moyeu dates from the 15th century.^[2][3][4][5] Middle French also had moyau.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old French moiel, inherited from Latin modiolus (“small vessel, hub of a wheel”).^[2][3][1][6] The Latin word is a diminutive of modius (“a measure of grain”), the source of muid; it meant properly “small measure, small vessel”, and its shape led to its use for the hub of a wheel and the shaft of an oil press.^[7][8][9]

Bloch and Wartburg note that the sense “hub” is rare outside French: Old Occitan mojol kept the sense “small vessel”, and Italian developed the sense in the simple word Italian mozzo.^[8] In the south and east of France the hub has other names, of Celtic origin.^[8] It is a doublet of modiole, a learned borrowing.^[1][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

It first appears about 1150 as the plural moieus in the Charroi de Nîmes, for the central part of a wheel into which the spokes fit and through which the axle passes:^[2][9] Trusqu'as moieus i est li chars entrez (“the cart sank in up to the hubs”).^[4]

Semantic evolution

The word came into French with the second sense of the Latin, the centre of a wheel, and has kept it.^[7] In the 16th century Montaigne used moyau figuratively, saying he was seated in the hub of the civil wars.^[4] From 1874 it also names, by analogy, the central piece of any assembly made to turn round an axis.^[2][7] Littré records a trellis-maker's sense, the block of wood into which flower stems are set.^[4] Unlike the Latin word, it has formed no derivatives in French.^[7]

Timeline

• c. 1150 – Moieus in the Charroi de Nîmes.^[2][9]
• 15th century – The spelling moyeu in the Catholicon of Lille.^[2][9]
• 1611 – Cotgrave glosses it both “yolk of an egg” and “nave or stock of a wheel”.^[10]
• 1694 – The Académie defines the hub of a wheel.^[11]
• 1801 – The learned doublet modiole appears, in Lamarck.^[7]
• 1874 – Larousse records the sense “central piece turning on an axis”.^[2][9]

Meanings

Noun

1. The hub of a wheel, through which the axle passes: un moyeu de vélo.^[12][9][2]
2. (mechanics) The central piece of an assembly that turns round an axis, as in a pulley or a propeller.^[12][2]
3. (dated) In trellis work, the block of wood holding the stems of flowers.^[4]

Related words

• modiole
• muid
• Latin modiolus

Usage notes

An old homograph moyeu meant “yolk of an egg”: Cotgrave and the Académie of 1694 record it, Littré calls it an aging word, and the Middle French forms include moieuf de euf and Rabelais's moyeulx d'eufz.^[10][11][4] Bloch and Wartburg trace it very probably to Latin mediolum (“egg yolk”), with its o taken from moyeu “hub”, since both lie at the centre of their object.^[8] The Académie of 1694 and Littré also record moyeu for a kind of preserved plum, of unknown origin.^[11][4] Littré notes that many people said “moi-ieu”.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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
3. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
6. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 6/3, 10a
7. ^ a b c d e f Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
8. ^ a b c d Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
9. ^ a b c d e f Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
10. ^ a b Cotgrave, Randle (1611), A Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues, London: Adam Islip
11. ^ a b c Académie française (1694), Le Dictionnaire de l'Académie françoise, 1st ed., Paris: Coignard
12. ^ a b Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert