Etymologically
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plage

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Pronunciation

  • IPA: /plaʒ/[1]

Forms

plage f (plural plages)[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Italian piaggia (“gently sloping shore; hillside”), also spiaggia, from Ancient Greek πλάγια (plágia, “sides, flanks”), the neuter plural of πλάγιος (plágios, “oblique, sideways”).[2][3][4][5][6][7] In the Middle Ages the Italian word belonged almost only to southern Italy, as Medieval Latin plagius and plagia.[3] It became confused from the 16th century with an older word meaning “region”, borrowed (1290) from Latin plaga (“expanse, region”).[8][2] Wiktionary combines both sources.[1] The same Greek adjective gave plagiaire.[5]

Compare Catalan platja, Occitan plaja, Spanish playa and Portuguese praia.[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The French version of Marco Polo (about 1298) has plaje for a gently sloping shore which ships approach with difficulty: the ships seuffrent moult de grans fortunes aus plajes “suffer great hazards on the beaches”.[2][6][9] There is only this record before 1456.[2][3]

Semantic evolution

Amyot uses plage de mer for a region by the sea.[8][9] The Encyclopédie (1765) calls it a term of geography.[2] The modern sense, the flat, low part of a shore where waves break, seems to appear with Romanticism at the beginning of the 19th century, when sailors said rather marine; the beach as a place to contemplate the sea is a theme of Michelet's La Mer.[2][5] By the end of the century (Maupassant, 1888) it was a place for bathing, and the word was extended to lakes and rivers (1910, Gide), becoming a key word of holidays and tourism; by metonymy it is a seaside resort.[2][6][8]

Other senses came after 1850: a clear deck of a warship (1909), the band of a record holding one recording (1962), the rear shelf of a car (plage arrière), and a stretch of time (plage horaire, 1959).[2][6]

Timeline

  • c. 1298 – Plaje, Marco Polo.[2]
  • 1456 – Plage.[3][6]
  • 1765 – A term of geography, Encyclopédie.[2]
  • Early 19th century – The modern beach.[2][5]
  • 1888 – A place for bathing, Maupassant.[2]
  • 1910 – The shore of a lake or river, Gide.[6]
  • 1959 – A stretch of time.[2]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A beach: plage de sable, de galets, aller à la plage.[5][1]
  2. A bathing place on a lake or river; a seaside resort: les plages bretonnes.[8][2]
  3. A band, track on a record: une plage d'un disque.[6][2]
  4. Plage arrière: the rear shelf of a car.[6]
  5. A range, stretch: plage horaire, a time slot, (mathematics) a range.[2][1]

Word family

  • plagiste
  • plagiaire
  • Italian piaggia

Usage notes

The older plage “region, country” (1290), from Latin plaga, has a numbered entry of its own in the TLFi and the Petit Robert; it survives only in poetry, as in Lamartine's des plages inconnues.[8][5][6]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e 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 Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
  3. ^ a b c d Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
  4. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
  5. ^ a b c d e f Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
  6. ^ 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
  7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
  8. ^ a b c d e 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
  9. ^ a b Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette