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pis

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French has two words spelled pis: the udder, from Latin pectus “breast”, and the comparative “worse”, from Latin pēius.[1][2][3]

pis1 udder

Pronunciation

Forms

pis m (invariable)[4] Old French peiz (late 10th century), piz (about 1050), then pis.[5][3][6]

Etymology

The udder is inherited from Old French piz, inherited from Latin pectus (“breast, chest; heart”).[3][5][7][8][4] Littré notes that it is one of the few nouns that kept in Old French the final ⟨-s⟩ of the Latin neuter, like tems from tempus and cors from corpus.[9] Rey calls the Latin word one without a counterpart outside Italic and Celtic;[5] Wiktionary traces it through Proto-Italic *pektos to Proto-Indo-European *peg- (“breast”).[4]

Cognate with Walloon pé, Italian petto, Spanish pecho and Portuguese peito.[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found as peiz in the Passion of Clermont (late 10th century), meaning “chest, breast”.[3][5]

Semantic evolution

The sense “chest” lasted through the Middle Ages and the 16th century and disappeared in the 17th in favour of poitrine;[5][7][3] Furetière (1690) calls it an old word, still used of a priest taking an oath with la main au pis.[5][7][3] The rural sense “udder of a dairy animal”, first found about 1180 in Guillaume de Berneville's Life of Saint Giles, prevailed in French and in most Gallo-Romance dialects.[3][5][7]

Timeline

  • Late 10th century – Peiz “chest” in the Passion.[3]
  • c. 1050 – Piz in the Vie de saint Alexis.[3]
  • c. 1180 – The udder, in Guillaume de Berneville.[3]
  • 1690 – Furetière calls the sense “chest” old.[3][5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The udder of a female mammal, especially of a cow, goat or ewe.[2][3]
  2. (rare) A woman's breast.[3]
  3. (obsolete) The chest.[5][7]

pis2 worse

Pronunciation

Forms

pis (invariable)[3]

Etymology

The comparative “worse” is inherited from Latin pēius, the neuter of pēior (“worse”), which gave pire.[3][5][7][1][10] It served as the comparative of mal.[3]

Cognate with Old Occitan pieitz and Italian peggio.[9][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found as peis in the Vie de saint Léger (second half of the 10th century), as an adjective with a neuter subject, the comparative of mal.[3][5]

Semantic evolution

The word had its main uses before the end of the 12th century: as a noun without article, avoir pis (about 1160), as an adverb (1160–1174, Wace) and as a superlative, “the worst thing” (1155, Wace).[3][5] Aller de mal en pis dates from 1245, qui pis est from Charles d'Orléans (1450–1465), and dire pis que pendre de quelqu'un is recorded by Cotgrave (1611); mettre les choses au pis is in Dancourt (1714).[3]

In modern French it lives on in set phrases such as tant pis, and popular speech tends to replace it with pire.[7][3]

Timeline

  • Late 10th century – Peis in the Vie de saint Léger.[3]
  • 1155 – As a superlative, in Wace.[3]
  • c. 1160 – The spelling pis, in the Roman d'Eneas.[3]
  • 1245 – Aller de mal en pis.[3]
  • 1450–1465 – Que pis est, in Charles d'Orléans.[3]
  • 1611 – Dire pis que pendre, in Cotgrave.[3]

Meanings

Adverb

  1. (dated or literary) worse, less well.[2][3]
  2. Tant pis: too bad, never mind, de mal en pis, from bad to worse.[2][7]

Adjective

  1. (literary) Worse, more unfortunate, with a neuter subject, qui pis est, what is worse.[2][3]

Noun

  1. Something worse: dire pis que pendre de quelqu'un, to say the worst things about someone.[2][3]
  2. Au pis aller: at the worst, le pis, the worst.[9][3]

Usage notes

In colloquial French of northern France and North America pis is also a reduced form of puis meaning “and, besides”, perhaps taken from dialect forms such as Picard pis.[4]

References

  1. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
  2. ^ a b c d e f Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 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
  4. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  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. ^ Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
  8. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 8, 111b
  9. ^ a b c d Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
  10. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 8, 155a