onde

Forms

onde f (plural ondes)^[1] Old French unde, later onde.^[2][1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old French unde, inherited from Latin unda (“moving water, wave”).^[3][4][2][1] In Latin the word, often in the plural and mostly in poetry, named moving, running water and the waves, and figuratively the surging of a crowd or of the air.^[2][3] Rey traces it to the Indo-European root Proto-Indo-European *wed- of the words for water; the nasal infix probably comes from a present stem.^[2]

Cognate with Italian onda, Spanish onda, Portuguese onda, Catalan ona, Occitan onda and Romanian undă.^[5][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found as unde about 1112 in Benedeit's Voyage de saint Brendan, for the moving surface of rough water and for water itself.^[3][7]

Semantic evolution

From the waves the word passed to the sea (Ronsard, 1549), a sense kept in poetry.^[3][2] By likeness it named what moves like water: the bubbling of a boiling mass (about 1140), wavy hair (early 14th century) and watered cloth (1565).^[3][2] In the 14th century it meant something that affects a person by fits and starts, as the pulse par undes, and Bossuet wrote of les ondes de la colère.^[3][2]

The scientific sense begins in the 18th century, for the rings spreading in a fluid (1765); Huygens had spoken of sound waves in 1690, and Fresnel of ondes lumineuses in 1821.^[2][3] Electric and electromagnetic waves followed (1894), with ondes hertziennes and longueur d'ondes in Poincaré (1899).^[2][3] From radio came ondes courtes, grandes ondes, and about 1940 les ondes for broadcasting itself;^[2] être sur la même longueur d'ondes “to be on the same wavelength” dates from 1957.^[2] The ondes Martenot (1948) are an electronic musical instrument.^[3][2]

Timeline

• c. 1112 – Unde appears in the Voyage de saint Brendan.^[3]
• c. 1140 – It is used of a boiling, heaving mass.^[3]
• 1549 – Ronsard uses it for the sea.^[3][2]
• 1565 – It describes a watered fabric.^[3]
• 1765 – The Encyclopédie uses it in physics.^[3]
• 1821 – Fresnel writes ondes lumineuses.^[3][2]
• 1899 – Poincaré writes ondes hertziennes and longueur d'ondes.^[3]
• c. 1940 – Les ondes is used for radio broadcasting.^[2]
• 1948 – The ondes Martenot are named.^[3]
• 1957 – Être sur la même longueur d'ondes is recorded.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. (literary, dated) Water in nature, the sea, a river or lake: l'onde claire du lac.^[8][1]
2. (physics) A wave, a disturbance or vibration travelling through a medium: onde sonore, onde électromagnétique.^[8][3][1]
3. Les ondes: radio broadcasting: passer sur les ondes.^[2]
4. Être sur la même longueur d'onde: to understand each other well.^[2]

Word family

• micro-onde
• ondin
• ondine
• ondée
• ondoyer

Related words

• onduler
• Latin unda

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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 Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r 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
4. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 14, 29b
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
6. ^ Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
7. ^ Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
8. ^ a b Dictionnaire Le Robert en ligne, dictionnaire.lerobert.com (accessed 2024)