pénétration

Forms

pénétration f (plural pénétrations)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin penetrātiō (“a piercing, a prick”), first recorded in French in 1374.^[2][3][4] The Latin noun is formed on the supine of penetrō (“to enter, penetrate”), and it was used as a term of philosophy in Medieval Latin about 1360.^[2][3] Picoche places the verb in the family of Latin penus (“inside of a house, store of food”), beside pénates.^[5] Within French it can be analysed as pénétrer with the suffix -ation.^[1]

Littré compares Old Occitan penetratio, Spanish penetración and Italian penetrazione.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in 1374, in Jean Goulain's translation of the Rationale of Guillaume Durand, for the action of entering or piercing something.^[2][3] Littré quotes 14th-century uses in Oresme, penetration de dimencions “interpenetration of bodies”, and in a translation of Bernard of Gordon, of a pleurisy that spreads par voye de penetracion.^[6]

Semantic evolution

The word was first concrete, for the act of passing into something, and it later took a sexual sense.^[3] Before 1654 Guez de Balzac used it for the mind's ability to grasp the deep sense of things, and La Rochefoucauld used it without a complement before 1678.^[2][7]

Victor Hugo used it in 1859 for entering a place or territory.^[7] In technical language it measures how far a projectile goes into a resisting medium, a sense Littré records.^[6]

Timeline

• 1374 – First record, in Jean Goulain's translation of Durand's Rationale.^[2][3]
• 14th century – Oresme writes of penetration de dimencions.^[6]
• before 1654 – Guez de Balzac uses it for insight into the meaning of things.^[2][3]
• before 1678 – La Rochefoucauld uses the intellectual sense without a complement.^[7]
• 1859 – Victor Hugo uses it for entering a place.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. The movement by which one body passes into another, as a liquid into the soil or a projectile into a target, also force de pénétration.^[8][4][9]
2. Sexual penetration.^[8][4]
3. The act of getting into a place or a territory, often by force or by stealth.^[8][9][7]
4. The spreading of an idea or a feeling into the mind.^[9][8]
5. Sharpness of mind, insight: the ability to grasp subtle or hidden things.^[9][2]
6. (architecture) A vaulted opening cut into another vault.^[9]

Related words

• pénétrer
• pénétrant
• pénétrable
• impénétrable
• Latin penetrātiō

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g 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 Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
4. ^ a b c Académie française (1992–2024), Dictionnaire de l'Académie française, 9th ed., Paris: Académie française / Fayard / Imprimerie nationale
5. ^ Picoche, Jacqueline (1991), Dictionnaire étymologique du français, Paris: Le Robert (Les Usuels du Robert)
6. ^ a b c d Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
7. ^ a b c d e Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
8. ^ a b c d Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
9. ^ a b c d e Dictionnaire de français Larousse, larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais (accessed 2024)