piètre

Forms

piètre (plural piètres)^[1] Old French paëstre and peestre, Picard and Middle French piestre;^[2][3][4] pietre is found from 1579.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle French piestre, inherited from Old French peestre, inherited from Latin pedester (“going on foot”), from pēs (“foot”).^[2][3][5][1] Because those who went on foot ranked below those on horseback, the Latin word took a pejorative sense before the French records begin.^[2][3][5] In Picardy the Old French form became the Middle French one with ⟨ie⟩, and that form spread into French.^[2][3] It is a doublet of the learned pédestre.^[1]

Littré, noting that the expected form would keep the ⟨s⟩, thought instead of the personal name Piètre, an old form of Pierre, used as a common noun.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found as paëstre in Ambroise's history of the Third Crusade (about 1195), meaning bad, faithless, depraved.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

In Old French the word described a wicked being or one to be pitied;^[2][3][5] Gautier de Coinci (about 1223) uses it several times of devils, in a sense Bloch and Wartburg find unclear.^[2][3][5] In western dialects it came to mean “lame”, and in Norman “club-footed”.^[5]

In the 15th century a pietre was a vile person.^[4][6] The modern, weakened sense, very mediocre, of a thing or of a person without worth or ability, appears in Amyot in 1559.^[4][7][3] The adjective is normally placed before the noun, of persons since Rousseau according to Littré.^[2][3]

Timeline

• c. 1195 – Paëstre appears in Ambroise's Estoire de la guerre sainte.^[2]
• c. 1223 – Gautier de Coinci writes peestre “wretched”.^[2][5]
• c. 1350 – The Picard form piestre appears in Gilles le Muisit.^[2][3]
• 1559 – Amyot uses pietre in the modern sense “paltry”.^[4][7]
• 1611 – The derivative piètrerie is recorded by Cotgrave.^[2][5]
• 1934 – Faire piètre figure is found in Montherlant.^[4]

Meanings

Adjective

1. (literary) Placed before the noun: very mediocre, paltry, of little worth: un piètre résultat, faire piètre figure (to cut a poor figure).^{[8][9][10][4]}
2. Of a person, without worth or ability: un piètre orateur.^[4][9][6]

Word family

• piètrement

Related words

• pédestre
• pied
• Latin pedester

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 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 k Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
5. ^ 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
6. ^ a b c Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
7. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
8. ^ Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
9. ^ a b Dictionnaire de français Larousse, larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais (accessed 2024)
10. ^ Dictionnaire Le Robert en ligne, dictionnaire.lerobert.com (accessed 2024)