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puits

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Etymology and origin of the French word puits

Confidence
Established
Formation
Inherited
First attested
c. 1120 Voyage de saint Brendan More words from the 12th century
Inherited from
Latin puteus via Old French
Ultimate origin
Latin puteus
Etymology tree
inherited borrowed derived
Latin puteus
French puits
Romanian puț
From the same root
Latin puteal ← puteus

Pronunciation

Forms

puits m (invariable)[1] Old French puz (about 1112), puiz (about 1120) and puis (about 1131); the spelling puits, with an etymological t that kept it apart from puis, dates from the 16th century.[2][3][1] Picard puche and Walloon puss.[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old French puiz, inherited from Latin puteus (“hole, pit, well, mine shaft”).[5][2][6][1][7] Its vowel is an abnormal development peculiar to French, probably due to the influence of Frankish *putti, itself borrowed from Latin (German Pfütze (“puddle”)); the French word would then be one of the hybrid forms born of the bilingualism of northern France after the Frankish invasion.[6][2][3] The TLFi offers this explanation only as a supposition.[5] Rey takes the Latin ending -eus, as in calceus, as a sign of an Etruscan origin;[2] Wiktionary traces the word to Proto-Indo-European *paw- (“to strike”).[1]

Cognate with Italian pozzo, Old Occitan potz, Catalan pou, Spanish pozo, Portuguese poço and Romanian puț.[8][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found about 1120 in the Voyage de saint Brendan, in li puz d'enfern “the pit of hell”, meaning an abyss.[5][2][9]

Semantic evolution

Beside the abyss of hell, the word soon had its everyday sense of a deep hole dug to reach underground water (about 1160).[2][9] From it came puits perdu (1671), a well whose bottom lets the water drain away, puits foré (1765) and then puits artésien (1834), named after Artois.[2][5] The proverb la vérité est au fond d'un puits alludes to Truth rising out of a well.[10][2]

From 1180–1190 it was used figuratively of a person with endless resources in some field, as in puis de sens et de clergie (Deschamps, 1394) and, the only usual phrase today, puits de science (1718).[5][2] From 1254 it was also a shaft dug to extract minerals, whence puits de mine and puits de pétrole (1904).[5][2] In cooking the puits d'amour is a pastry (1733); since 1791 the word has also named the hollow made in flour to knead the dough.[5][11] Geographers took up the old sense of an abyss in 1869 for natural shafts.[2]

Timeline

  • c. 1120 – Li puz d'enfern in the Voyage de saint Brendan, which Rey dates about 1112.[5][2][9]
  • c. 1165 – Benoît de Sainte-Maure uses puiz of a spring.[5]
  • 1180–1190 – First figurative use of a person, in the Roman d'Alexandre.[5]
  • 1254 – Used of a mine shaft.[5]
  • 16th century – The spelling puits.[2][3]
  • 1671 – Puits perdu in Pomey.[5]
  • 1718 – The Académie records puits de science.[5]
  • 1733 – Puits d'amour in a cookery book.[5]
  • 1834 – Puits artésien.[2]
  • 1904 – Puits de pétrole.[2]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A well: a deep, narrow, usually round hole with built walls, dug to reach underground water.[10][12][13]
  2. Puits artésien: an artesian well.[10][2] Puits perdu: a well whose permeable bottom lets water drain away.[10][2]
  3. (figurative) Un puits de science: a very learned person.[10][5][4]
  4. A shaft dug to work a deposit: puits de mine, puits de pétrole.[13][12][2]
  5. (geography) A natural shaft or chasm.[10][2]
  6. (cooking) The hollow made in a heap of flour before kneading;[5][11] puits d'amour: a pastry.[5][11]

Word family

  • puisard
  • puisatier
  • puiser
  • épuiser

Usage notes

La vérité est au fond d'un puits means that the truth is well hidden and hard to find.[10]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f 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 q r s Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
  3. ^ a b c Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
  4. ^ a b c Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q 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
  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, 626b
  8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
  9. ^ a b c Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
  10. ^ a b c d e f g Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
  11. ^ a b c Quemada, Bernard, ed. (1959–2006), Datations et documents lexicographiques (Base historique du vocabulaire français, BHVF), Paris: Klincksieck / CNRS / Champion; ATILF
  12. ^ a b Dictionnaire de français Larousse, larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais (accessed 2024)
  13. ^ a b Dictionnaire Le Robert en ligne, dictionnaire.lerobert.com (accessed 2024)

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Puits.” Etymologically, 11 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/fr/puits. Accessed 12 Nov. 2026.

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