piteux

Forms

piteux (feminine piteuse, masculine plural piteux, feminine plural piteuses)^[1] Old French pitus (c. 1120), pitous and piteus (c. 1175).^[2][3][4] Anglo-Norman petous, pitous and piteous.^[5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old French pitus, inherited from Late Latin pietōsus (“full of compassion”), recorded in the 10th century and formed from Latin pietās (“piety, pity”).^[6][2][7][8] The same Latin noun gave pitié and piété.^[2]

Cognate with Italian pietoso, Spanish piadoso and Catalan piadós.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record, pitus in the Cambridge Psalter (first half of the 12th century), has the active sense of the Latin, “compassionate, merciful”.^[6][2]

Semantic evolution

The active sense “merciful” lasted until the 17th century and is last recorded by Pomey in 1671.^[6][2] Before the end of the 12th century the word also took the passive sense “moving to pity, touching” (Thomas's Tristan, about 1180);^[6][2] this later gave way to pitoyable, though some 19th-century writers such as Chateaubriand still used it.^[2] From the 14th to the 16th century piteux could also mean “pious”, a sense left to pieux once pitié and piété were told apart.^[2][6] The Brunots note that Louis the Pious was first praised as Louis le Piteux, a name that had to be changed when the adjective took its modern sense.^[6]

The modern sense, “pitiful in a contemptible or ridiculous way”, first appears in Sorel's Francion (1623), in piteuse chère “a poor meal”, from a condescending use of “moving to pity”.^[6][2] Faire piteuse mine is found in Scarron in 1651.^[6][2] The word is now used mostly of things, less often of people.^[2] English piteous goes back to the Anglo-Norman forms.^[5]

Timeline

• c. 1120 – Pitus “merciful” appears in the Cambridge Psalter.^[6][2]
• c. 1175 – The form piteus is used by Chrétien de Troyes.^[3]
• c. 1180 – Thomas's Tristan uses it for “moving to pity”.^[6]
• 14th–16th centuries – It is also used for “pious”.^[2][6]
• 1623 – The pejorative sense “wretched, poor” appears in Sorel's Francion.^[6][2]
• 1651 – Scarron writes faisant une piteuse mine.^[6]
• 1671 – Last record of the sense “merciful”, in Pomey.^[6][2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. (obsolete) merciful, feeling pity.^[6][10]
2. (dated) Deserving pity, wretched, piteous.^[6][10]
3. Pitiful in a way that invites contempt or mockery, paltry, sorry: en piteux état, in a sorry state.^[10][3]
4. Sheepish, crestfallen: faire piteuse mine, to look downcast.^[10][9]

Word family

• piteusement

Related words

• pitié
• piété
• pieux
• pitoyable
• Latin pietās
• English piteous

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
3. ^ a b c Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
4. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
5. ^ a b Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p 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
7. ^ 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, 442b
9. ^ a b Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
10. ^ a b c d Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert