Etymologically
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otage

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Pronunciation

  • IPA: /ɔ.taʒ/[1]

Forms

otage m or f by sense (plural otages)[1] Old French ostage, hostage[2][3][1]; otage from the 16th century, written without a circumflex.[2][3][1]

Etymology

It is from Old French oste + -age, from the old form of hôte “host, guest” with the suffix -age,[2][4][5][6][1][7] and so goes back to Latin hospes (“host, guest”).[8] Hostages were usually lodged in the house of the lord to whom they were sent, so the word, which meant “lodging, dwelling”, came to name the person, especially in phrases like “prendre” or “laisser en ostage” “to take into or leave in one's house”.[2][4][5][8] Littré derived it instead from a Medieval Latin “obsidaticum”, from Latin obses (“hostage”).[9]

Italian ostaggio was borrowed from Gallo-Romance.[5] English hostage comes from Old French.[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Chanson de Roland (about 1100) already uses ostage for a person given or received as a pledge that a promise or treaty will be kept;[2][4] the sense “lodging” is recorded in the Roman d'Énéas (about 1160), though it must be older.[2][4]

Semantic evolution

In the Revolutionary period (1793) the word took the modern sense of a person seized and held as a means of pressure to obtain what one demands.[2][4] Rey notes that its weight has varied greatly, from individual hostages to the groups shot in reprisal in 1942–1945;[4] prise d'otages is hostage-taking.[6] It is also used figuratively, être l'otage de “to be the hostage of”.[4]

Timeline

  • c. 1100 – Ostage “hostage” (Roland).[2][8]
  • c. 1160 – Ostage “lodging”.[2]
  • 16th century – The spelling otage.[3]
  • 1793 – A person held to extort demands.[2][4]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A hostage, a person seized and held to force demands: prise d'otages.[6][1]
  2. A person given as a pledge for a promise or treaty.[6][2]
  3. (figurative) Someone used as a means of pressure: être l'otage de.[4]

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 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 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 Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
  5. ^ a b c Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
  6. ^ a b c d Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
  7. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 4, 491b
  8. ^ a b c Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
  9. ^ Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette