pore

Forms

pore m (plural pores)^[1] Middle French porre (1314, Henri de Mondeville); the spelling pore is the usual one from the 15th century.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Late Latin porus (“passage, duct, pore”),^[4][5][6][7] which is from Ancient Greek πόρος (póros, “passage”).^[4][5][6] Rey explains the Greek noun as a derivative of πείρω (peírō, “to pierce through”), from an Indo-European root Proto-Indo-European *per- (“to cross”) also seen in Latin words behind porte, port¹ and porter¹.^[5]

Cognate with Old Occitan pors, Spanish poro and Italian poro.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found at the end of the 13th century, as pores dou cuir “pores of the skin” in a French translation of the emperor Frederick II's treatise on hunting with birds, De arte venandi cum avibus: the tiny openings in the skin.^[4][5]

Semantic evolution

French took over only one sense of the Latin word, the tiny opening in the skin.^[5] From the 15th century (a manuscript of the 16th century of a translation made in 1444) it also named the empty spaces thought to separate the particles of a body, a notion that served as an explanation in physics from the 16th to the 18th century, like that of the adjective poreux.^[4][5][9]

Furetière (1690) records it for a void in a rock, and the Encyclopédie (1765) uses it in botany.^[4] The figurative phrase par tous les pores “with one's whole being” dates from 1840.^[5]

Timeline

• Late 13th century – Pores dou cuir appears in a translation of De arte venandi cum avibus.^[4]
• 1314 – Henri de Mondeville writes porre.^[2][3]
• 1444 – A translation of Giles of Rome uses it for the spaces between the particles of a body (in a later manuscript).^[4][9]
• 1690 – Furetière records the sense “void in a rock”.^[4]
• 1765 – The Encyclopédie uses it in botany.^[4][9]
• 1840 – First record of par tous les pores.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A tiny opening in the skin, where the sweat and sebaceous glands open: les pores du nez.^[9][2]
2. Par tous les pores: with one's whole being, from every part of one's person.^[9][5]
3. (botany) A small opening in a plant's surface, a stomate.^[9][4]
4. A small orifice or cavity in the surface of any body, such as wood or stone.^[4][2]
5. (old physics) A supposed empty space between the particles of a substance; in modern geology, an interstice in a rock.^[9][4]

Word family

• poreux

Related words

• porosité
• Latin porus

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
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 i j k l 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 d e f g h i Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
6. ^ a b Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
7. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 9, 228b
8. ^ Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
9. ^ a b c d e f g Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert