passereau

Forms

passereau m (plural passereaux)^[1] Old French passerel (1265), then passereau (1538, Marot).^[2][3] The GLLF finds passerel already about 1206 in Guiot de Provins, and the plural passerias about 1120.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old French passerel,^[1] formed from Old French passere (“sparrow”) + -el.^[2][3] The Old French noun (first half of the 12th century, in the Oxford Psalter) is from Latin passer (“sparrow”), a word also used for other small birds and of unknown origin.^[2][3][5]

Bloch and Wartburg see it instead as a change of suffix from older forms such as passeron, derived from the Latin word while its /r/ was still kept, as it was not in Old French passe.^[6] Other derivatives, passerat (1342–1611) and passeret, were common mainly in the Centre, the West and the South, but in the northern dialects moineau displaced them.^[2][3]

Cognate with Italian passero, Old Occitan paser, Spanish pájaro (“bird”), Portuguese pássaro (“bird”) and Romanian pasăre (“bird”).^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLFi first records passerel “sparrow” in 1265, in a bestiary of birds (the Volucraire).^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

Once the ordinary name of the sparrow, passereau became a learned or literary synonym of moineau.^[3][2] Marot wrote of le passereau de la jeune Maupas.^[8]

From 1803 naturalists used the plural passereaux for an order of small birds, after the scientific Latin passeres of Linnaeus.^[2][3][9] Because the order's name was confused with the everyday word, ornithologists later coined passériformes (1930).^[3]

Timeline

• 1265 – Passerel is recorded in the Volucraire.^[2]
• 1342 – The variant passerat appears in Renart le Contrefait.^[2]
• 1538 – Marot writes passereau.^[2][9]
• 1803 – The plural passereaux names an order of birds.^[2][9]
• 1930 – Passériformes is coined for the order.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. (dated, literary) A sparrow.^[9][2][4]
2. (ornithology) In the plural, the passerines, an order of small perching and singing birds.^[9][2]

Related words

• moineau
• passériformes
• Latin passer

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m 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 Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
4. ^ a b Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
5. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 7, 728b
6. ^ Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
9. ^ a b c d e Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert