placenta

Forms

placenta m (plural placentas)^[1] An isolated earlier borrowing, placente “flat cake”, is found in 1540.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin placenta (“flat cake”), a learned borrowing so named because of the organ's shape in humans.^[4][2][5] Wiktionary and Bloch and Wartburg take it from the Latin of the naturalists, where the classical word for a cake was given its anatomical sense.^[1][6] An isolated borrowing placente with the Latin meaning, a cake, is recorded in 1540, in a translation of Virgil's Eclogues by Guillaume Michel.^[4][7]

The Latin word was itself borrowed from Ancient Greek πλακοῦς (plakoûs, “flat cake”), altered by association with placeō (“to please”).^[2][8] The Greek noun is a contraction of πλακόεις (plakóeis, “flat”), from πλάξ (pláx, “flat surface, plain, flat stone”).^[2][8] Rey compares Old Norse and other Germanic words for a rock shelf or ledge, and doubts the link with the verb for pleasing, preferring plancus (“flat-footed”) and plānus (“flat”).^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Théophile Gelée's Anatomie françoise uses it in 1642 for the organ that joins the fetus to the mother's womb.^[4][2] Bloch and Wartburg, the Grand Robert and the GLLF date the first record to 1654.^[6][3][7]

Semantic evolution

Botanists took the word over in 1694, when Tournefort used it for the part of the carpel that bears the ovules.^[4][6][7] Littré also records it in zoology as the name of a flattened sea urchin.^[8] The medical phrase placenta praevia, a placenta lying over the opening of the cervix, is recorded by Larousse in 1963.^[7]

Timeline

• 1540 – Placente “flat cake” appears in Guillaume Michel's Virgil.^[4][7]
• 1642 – Gelée uses placenta in anatomy.^[4][2]
• 1654 – The date of first record given by Bloch and Wartburg and the GLLF.^[6][7]
• 1694 – Tournefort uses it in botany.^[4][6]
• 1963 – Placenta praevia is recorded by Larousse.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. (anatomy) The placenta, the spongy organ rich in blood vessels that joins the fœtus to the utérus during pregnancy and is expelled after birth.^[4][5]
2. (botany) The part of a carpel to which the ovules are attached.^[5][7]

Related words

• plaque
• Latin placenta

Usage notes

The GLLF gives arrière-faix and délivre as synonyms of the anatomical sense.^[7]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
3. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
4. ^ a b c d e f g h 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
5. ^ a b c Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
6. ^ a b c d e Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
8. ^ a b c Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette