nourriture

Forms

nourriture f (plural nourritures)^[1] Old French nureture, norreture and norriture;^[2][3] nourriture from the 14th century.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Late Latin nūtrītūra (“action of feeding”), remade after nourrir;^[4][5][6] the Latin noun is formed on nūtrītum, the supine of nūtriō (“to feed, nourish”).^[3][7] The TLFi and Bloch and Wartburg call it a borrowing, Rey says it comes from the Late Latin word with the influence of the French verb,^[4][5][2] and Wiktionary treats it as inherited.^[1]

Cognate with Old Occitan noiridura and Italian nutritura.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

In Philippe de Thaon's Bestiaire (1121–1134) nureture means upbringing, the action of rearing and teaching, and also an animal being reared.^[4][2] The Grand Robert and Littré cite nurture for livestock in the Laws of William, late 11th century.^[8][7]

Semantic evolution

The word at first had the broad active sense “bringing up, education”, alive until the 17th century and, according to Bloch and Wartburg, until the 18th;^[2][5] it also named the child being reared (1170, Chrétien de Troyes), a use later taken over by nourrisson, and in the 17th century the nursing of a child (before 1630).^[2][4]

The concrete sense, what serves as food for people, is recorded from about 1370 and pushed out the others.^[2][4] In the 16th century came its use for plants (1549, Estienne), the figurative sense of what feeds the heart or mind (1555, Ronsard) and the sense of a person's keep (1562).^[4][2]

Timeline

• 1121–1134 – Nureture “upbringing” in Philippe de Thaon.^[4]
• 1170 – Norreture, a child being reared, in Chrétien de Troyes' Erec et Enide.^[4]
• c. 1370 – Food for people, in the Lamentations de Matheolus.^[4]
• 1549 – Robert Estienne uses it of plants.^[4]
• 1555 – Ronsard uses it figuratively.^[4]
• Before 1630 – The nursing of a child, in Agrippa d'Aubigné.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. food, whatever living beings eat to stay alive; the substances so taken.^[9][10]
2. The action of feeding a living being.^[10][4]
3. (literary) What nourishes the mind or heart: nourritures intellectuelles.^[10][9]
4. (technical) A greasy preparation worked into leather to make it supple.^[10]
5. (dated) upbringing, education.^[9][2]

Related words

• nourrir
• nourrisson
• nutrition
• Latin nūtrītūra

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
3. ^ a b c 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 j k l m 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 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. 7, 253b
7. ^ a b c Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
8. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
9. ^ a b c 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)