pollen

Forms

pollen m (plural pollens)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin pollen (“fine flour, fine dust”).^[2][3][1] The botanical sense was first given to the word in the Latin of 18th-century botanists, New Latin pollen, from which the modern French word was taken.^[4][5][6][7]

Rey describes the Latin word as an expressive term of everyday speech, with an expressive double ⟨ll⟩ that is missing from polenta, and sets it beside Latin puls (“porridge”), pulvis (“dust”) and pulpa (“flesh, pulp”), which may point to a common Indo-European root Proto-Indo-European *pel-.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

It first appears once in 1562, in Du Pinet's translation of Pliny, with the Latin sense “flour”, a Latinism that did not last.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

The modern word is a new borrowing with no link to that first use beyond the Latin.^[3] The sense “fertilizing dust of flowering plants” arose in 18th-century scientific Latin as a metaphor, pollen looking like a very fine yellow powder,^[3] and is recorded in French in 1766 in Rozier and Claret de La Tourette's Démonstrations élémentaires de botanique;^[2][4][6] the DHLF dates it to 1762.^[3]

Learned derivatives followed in the natural sciences: pollination (1812), remade as pollinisation (1875), pollinique (1832), pollinie (1836), pollinifère (1845) and polliniser (1904), and in medicine pollinose, an allergy to pollen (mid-20th century).^[3]

Timeline

• 1562 – Du Pinet uses it once in the sense “flour”.^[2][3]
• 1766 – Rozier and Claret de La Tourette use it for the fertilizing dust of plants.^[2][4][6]
• 1812 – The derivative pollination appears; it was later remade as pollinisation (1875).^[3]
• 1832 – Pollinique is recorded.^[3]
• 1904 – Polliniser is recorded, as a past participle.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. (botany) pollen: the very fine powder of microscopic grains produced by the anthers of seed plants, the male agent of fertilization; it can cause allergies.^[8][2][6]

Word family

• pollinisation
• polliniser
• pollinique
• pollinie
• pollinose

Related words

• polenta
• poudre
• Latin pollen

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f 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 Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
5. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
6. ^ a b c d Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
7. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 9, 131b
8. ^ Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert