période

Forms

période f (plural périodes)^[1] Middle French peryode, periode; the spelling with ⟨é⟩ spread about 1740.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek περίοδος (períodos, “a way round, circuit”), perhaps through Late Latin periodus.^[2][3] The rhetorical sense, a rounded sentence, was taken from the Latin word of the imperial period, itself from the Greek one.^[2][4] The Greek word is formed of περί (perí, “around”) and ὁδός (hodós, “road, way”);^[3][5] Rey traces the second to an Indo-European root meaning “to go”.^[3][5]

In Greek it meant a circuit, a going round, and then the revolution of the stars, from which it passed to time: the regular return of the seasons, a span of time or of life.^[3][2] The gender long wavered because the Greek noun is feminine and the Latin one masculine.^[2][4][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found as peryode in Mahieu le Vilain's Méthéores (manuscript of the 14th century), meaning the length of time a thing lasts;^[2] the Grand Robert and the GLLF date the text to about 1270.^[7][8] Alain Chartier has periode in 1422.^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

The word came into French only with its sense of time, which is still the usual one.^[3] It hesitated between masculine and feminine until the feminine prevailed in all uses towards the end of the 18th century.^[3] The masculine survived in an archaizing style for a stage in a development, first of a disease (1478), and for the highest point, au plus haut periode (1690).^[2][3] Bloch and Wartburg date the sense “highest point” to the 16th century, masculine from the 17th after the gender of the Latin word.^[4]

Learned uses followed: astronomy (1671, période julienne, and the time a planet takes for its revolution), medicine (1797, already masculine in 1764), geology (1842), physics (1851), law (1871, période électorale), arithmetic (1872), and in 1938 the time in which a radioactive element loses half its mass.^[2][3] The rhetorical sense, a well-built sentence of several members, is dated 1596, and the musical one 1787.^[2]

Timeline

• 14th century – Peryode appears in Mahieu le Vilain's Méthéores.^[2]
• 1422 – Alain Chartier writes periode.^[2]
• 1478 – Used in the masculine for the crisis of a disease.^[2]
• 1596 – First recorded as a term of rhetoric.^[2]
• 1671 – Période julienne and the astronomical sense appear.^[2]
• 1690 – Furetière records au plus haut periode.^[2]
• c. 1740 – The spelling with ⟨é⟩ becomes general.^[3]
• 1871 – Période électorale is recorded.^[2]
• 1938 – Used of a radioactive element.^[2][8]

Meanings

Noun

1. (feminine) A span of time: une période de trois mois.^[9][10]
2. (feminine) A stretch of time marked by particular events or features, an epoch or era, also a phase in an artist's work.^[9][10]
3. (feminine, science) A fixed interval after which a phenomenon recurs, as the time a planet takes for its revolution.^[2][5]
4. (feminine, rhetoric) A long, balanced sentence of several members.^[2][4]
5. (masculine, literary) Au plus haut période, au dernier période: at the highest degree, the peak.^[10][2]

Word family

• périodisation

Related words

• méthode
• exode
• Ancient Greek περίοδος (períodos)

References

1. ^ a b 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 s t u 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 g h i j Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
4. ^ a b c d Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
5. ^ a b c d Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
6. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 8, 244b
7. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
8. ^ a b Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
9. ^ a b Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
10. ^ a b c Dictionnaire de français Larousse, larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais (accessed 2024)