Etymologically
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pauvre

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Pronunciation

  • IPA: /povʁ/[1]

Forms

pauvre (plural pauvres)[1] Old French povre, also poure (the manuscripts do not show whether ⟨u⟩ stood for /v/); the spelling pauvre restored Latin ⟨au⟩ and replaced povre in the 16th century.[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old French povre, inherited from Latin pauper (“poor, needy”).[2][5][4][6] The Latin word is probably to be analysed as “pau-per-os” “producing little”, said first of land and livestock; it belongs with paucus (“few”) (see peu) and paulus (“small”), and is compared with Ancient Greek παῦρος (paûros, “small, few”) and Gothic 𐍆𐌰𐍅𐌰𐌹 (fawai, “few”).[5][3][1] REW derives the French and Italian forms from a variant feminine Latin paupera.[7]

The form “pauvre” is a learned respelling: it appears in a manuscript after 1480, is general in Rabelais and the Pléiade, and yet Henri Estienne still gave “povre” as the normal form in 1579.[2][5]

Cognate with Italian povero, Occitan paubre, Spanish pobre and Portuguese pobre.[3][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is found about 1050 in the Vie de saint Alexis as povre, both as an adjective “needy, lacking material goods” and as a noun “a poor person”; the same text uses it of a thing “fit for a poor man, wretched”.[2][5]

Semantic evolution

From the 12th century it qualified things of little worth or strength, “paltry” (1176–1181, Chrétien de Troyes) and “unimportant” (1188).[2][5] Povre de “lacking in” is recorded in 1190 and pauvre en in 1671; it was applied to language by Du Bellay (langue pauvre, 1549) and to rhyme in 1615.[2]

Placed before the noun it expressed pity (15th century), then a condescending affection in le povre homme ! (the Farce de Maître Pathelin, 1461–1469) and contempt in pauvre type, mon pauvre as a term of affection is found from the early 17th century.[2][5][8] The biblical pauvres d'esprit (1553), “the poor in spirit”, came to mean simpletons (1690, Furetière).[2][4] As a noun, pauvre now suggests real destitution, and euphemisms are often preferred, nouveaux pauvres (1968) named those made poor by unemployment.[5]

Timeline

  • c. 1050 – Povre, adjective and noun, in the Vie de saint Alexis.[2]
  • 1176–1181 – “Paltry, pitiable”, in Chrétien de Troyes.[2]
  • 1461–1469 – Le povre homme ! in the Farce de Maître Pathelin.[2]
  • After 1480 – The spelling pauvre appears.[2]
  • 1549 – Langue pauvre in Du Bellay.[2]
  • 1553 – Les povres d'esprit in a Bible translation.[2]
  • 1690 – Pauvre d'esprit “simpleton”, in Furetière.[2]
  • 1968 – Nouveaux pauvres.[5]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. (after the noun) poor, lacking money or the necessities of life.[9][10]
  2. (of a place) Inhabited mostly by the poor: un quartier pauvre.[10]
  3. Looking poor, meagre: une décoration pauvre.[10][9]
  4. Pauvre en: having little of: un régime pauvre en calories.[10]
  5. Lacking its proper elements, scanty: une langue pauvre, une rime pauvre.[10][2]
  6. (before the noun) Pitiable, wretched: le pauvre homme; also of the dead: mon pauvre père.[9][5]
  7. (before the noun, derogatory) Contemptible: pauvre type, pauvre imbécile.[1][5]

Noun

  1. A poor person, a pauper: les pauvres.[10][1]
  2. Pauvre d'esprit: a simpleton; in the Gospel, the humble in spirit.[4][2]

Word family

  • appauvrir
  • pauvreté
  • pauvret
  • paupérisation
  • pauvresse
  • pauvrement
  • paupérisme
  • peu
  • Latin pauper
  • English poor

Usage notes

The position changes the sense: un homme pauvre has no money, un pauvre homme is to be pitied.[9][1] As a noun the feminine is usually une pauvre rather than pauvresse.[5] The exclamation pauvre ! is used in Provence and Marseille.[5]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f 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 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 Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
  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 e f g h i j k l 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, 56b
  7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
  8. ^ Quemada, Bernard, ed. (1959–2006), Datations et documents lexicographiques (Base historique du vocabulaire français, BHVF), Paris: Klincksieck / CNRS / Champion; ATILF
  9. ^ a b c d Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
  10. ^ a b c d e f Dictionnaire de français Larousse, larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais (accessed 2024)