porteur

Forms

porteur m (plural porteurs, feminine porteuse)^[1] Old French nominative porterre and oblique porteor, later porteeur.^[2][3][4] Anglo-Norman also porteour and portour.^[5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old French porteor, inherited from Late Latin portātor (“bearer of an object or letter”),^[4][3][6][1] a derivative of portō (“to carry”), formed on its supine stem.^[3][7] The modern form makes it look like a French derivative of porter¹ with -eur, and the Robert dictionaries treat it so.^[3][8][9]

Cognate with Romanian purtător, Italian portatore, Catalan portador, Spanish portador and Portuguese portador.^[10][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found as porterre in the Oxford Psalter (first half of the 12th century), translating Latin legislator: li porterre de la lei “the giver of the law”;^[4][3][2] “one who establishes a law, who governs” was a usual Old French sense.^[4][3][2]

Semantic evolution

The concrete sense “one who carries something” appears about 1170.^[4][3] From 1248 it is the bearer of a letter or message;^[4][3] it was then used for the bringer of news (1585) and the newspaper deliverer (1846).^[4][3] The person who carries loads for a living is recorded about 1260, with porteur d'eau “water carrier” in 1366, then the man who carries baggage on an expedition (1791), in mountaineering (1853) and at a railway station (1925).^[4][3] Porteur de rogatons (1367) and porteur de pardons (1389), a seller of indulgences, belong to the older sense of carrying something on oneself.^[3][4]

In commercial law it is the person to whose benefit a bill has been drawn or endorsed (1599 according to the DHLF and the Petit Robert, 1675 in Savary according to the TLFi), and payable au porteur dates from 1675;^{[3][4][8][11]} in the 20th century shareholders came to be called porteurs.^[3] The word also named the horse ridden by the postilion (1680), a person carrying a disease (1848) and, since 1948, large transport aircraft, ships and lorries, as in gros porteur.^[3][4] Used as an adjective from 1856 (pilier porteur), it gave mur porteur, onde porteuse (1937) and fusée porteuse (1959), and in 1976 marché porteur “booming market”.^[4]

The Anglo-Norman noun lies behind the Middle English portour and the English word porter “carrier”.^[5]

Timeline

• c. 1120 – Porterre “lawgiver” in the Oxford Psalter.^[4][7]
• c. 1170 – Porteor “one who carries” in the Roman de Horn.^[4]
• 1248 – Used of the bearer of a letter.^[4]
• c. 1260 – Étienne Boileau's Livre des métiers has porteeur “porter of loads”.^[4][3]
• 1366 – Porteurs d'eaue “water carriers”.^[4][3]
• 1675 – Savary records the commercial sense and payable au porteur.^[4][11]
• 1680 – Richelet records the horse ridden by the postilion.^[4]
• 1791 – Bernardin de Saint-Pierre uses it of an expedition's baggage carrier.^[4]
• 1848 – Chateaubriand writes of porteurs de la peste.^[4][3]
• 1875 – First mountaineering record found by the BHVF.^[11]
• 1923 – Porteur de germes in Jules Romains's Knock.^[4]
• 1948 – Gros porteur for a large aircraft.^[4][3]
• 1976 – Marché porteur “booming market”.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A person charged with delivering letters, messages or parcels: porteur de journaux “newspaper deliverer”.^[8][4]
2. A person who carries loads for a living: a railway porter, a carrier on an expedition.^[8][1][3]
3. A person who is carrying a given object, or who brings news.^[8][1]
4. A holder of papers or securities;^[8][3] (commercial law) the payee or holder of a bill or cheque: au porteur “to bearer”, les petits porteurs “small shareholders”.^[8][3]
5. A person or thing that carries and transmits something, especially a carrier of a disease: porteur sain “healthy carrier”.^[8][3]
6. (transport) A large-capacity aircraft, ship or lorry: gros porteur.^[3][8]
7. (circus) The acrobat who supports or catches the flyer.^[4]

Adjective

1. That carries or supports: mur porteur “load-bearing wall”, fusée porteuse “launch rocket”, mère porteuse “surrogate mother”.^[8][4]
2. (electronics) Onde porteuse, courant porteur: a carrier wave or current modulated to carry information.^[8][4]
3. Promising, booming: marché porteur, secteur porteur.^[8][1]

Word family

• triporteur
• gros-porteur

Related words

• porter¹
• portatif
• Latin portātor

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 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 Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
6. ^ Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
7. ^ a b Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
9. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
11. ^ a b c Quemada, Bernard, ed. (1959–2006), Datations et documents lexicographiques (Base historique du vocabulaire français, BHVF), Paris: Klincksieck / CNRS / Champion; ATILF