pêne

Forms

pêne m (plural pênes)^[1] Old French pedle (early 12th century), pesle and pesne;^[2][3] Middle French pene (1440).^[2][3] The older form pêle was in use until the 17th century.^[4][5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old French pesle (“bolt”), inherited from Latin pessulus (“bolt of a door”).^[2][5][4][6] The Old French word was altered to pesne, perhaps under the influence of chaîne.^[2][5][1] The Latin word is probably from Ancient Greek πάσσαλος (pássalos, “peg, nail”),^[2][4][1] and Rey thinks it was reshaped by folk etymology or passed through Etruscan.^[5] He connects the Greek word with the Indo-European root of Latin pālus (“stake”) and pāx (“peace”).^[5]

Bloch and Wartburg note that outside France the Latin word survives only in Romance dialects.^[4] Littré compares the Genevan péclet (“door latch”), which he explains as a diminutive of the Old French word.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Old French form pedles is first found in the Cambridge Psalter in the early 12th century,^[2][3] and pesne in a manuscript of Guillaume d'Angleterre dated 1288, in the locksmith's sense it still has: the sliding bolt of a lock.^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

The two forms lived side by side for centuries.^[7][4] An ordinance of August 1489 forbids locksmiths to make locks whose pesle is forked,^[7] and Villon writes of being led de l'uys au pesle, from the door to the bolt.^[7] Richelet still found pêle the commoner word in 1680: “On dit pêne ou pêle, mais le plus usité de ces deux, c'est pêle” (“one says pêne or pêle, but the more usual of the two is pêle”).^[4] The old form is recorded by Cotgrave in 1611 and was still listed in the 18th century by the Trévoux dictionaries.^[2][5]

The meaning has not changed: the word names the moving part of a lock that the key, a knob or a handle pushes into the gâche.^[5][2] The locksmiths distinguish the pêne dormant, worked only by the key, from the bevelled pêne demi-tour, worked by the handle.^[8][7]

Timeline

• c. 1120 – Old French pedles in the Cambridge Psalter.^[2][3]
• c. 1175 – The form pesne in Chrétien de Troyes, according to the Grand Robert and the GLLF.^[9][3]
• 1288 – Pesne in a manuscript of Guillaume d'Angleterre, the TLFi's first record.^[2]
• 1440 – The spelling pene in accounts from Rouen.^[2][5]
• 1489 – An ordinance on locks uses pesle.^[7]
• 1611 – Cotgrave records pesle.^[2]
• 1680 – Richelet records pêne beside the commoner pêle.^[9][4]

Meanings

Noun

1. The bolt of a lock: the sliding part that a key, knob or handle pushes into the striking plate to keep a door shut: le pêne a glissé dans la gâche.^[8][2][10]
2. Pêne dormant: a deadbolt, moved only by the key.^[8][2]
3. Pêne demi-tour: a latch bolt with a bevelled end, moved by the handle.^[8][7]

Related words

• Latin pessulus

Usage notes

The GLLF has a separate, feminine pêne in weaving, the unwoven end of the warp on the loom, which it takes to be a spelling of penne or peigne.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o 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 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 Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
6. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 8, 308b
7. ^ a b c d e f g Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
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 Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
10. ^ Dictionnaire de français Larousse, larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais (accessed 2024)