quarantaine

Forms

quarantaine f (plural quarantaines)^[1] Old French quaranteine.^[2][3] Anglo-Norman spellings include karanteine, quarenteine and quarantine.^[4]

Etymology

It is formed from French quarante + -aine.^[5][2][6][1] Quarante comes from Vulgar Latin quaranta, the popular form found in inscriptions from Gaul, for classical quadrāgintā (“forty”).^[6] Wiktionary takes the medical sense, isolation against contagion, as a calque of Italian quarantena.^[1]

Cognate with Occitan quarantena and Spanish cuarentena.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLFi's first record is in Guernes de Pont-Sainte-Maxence's life of Thomas Becket (about 1174–76), meaning “a number of forty”;^[5] Littré quotes it: E quant la quaranteine des meis fust trespassée “and when the forty months had passed”.^[3] The Anglo-Norman Dictionary has records from as early as 1121–25.^[4]

Semantic evolution

From the number, the word soon came to mean a period of forty days (1180–90), and in particular Lent, the forty days of fasting (about 1200).^[5][7] In feudal law, the quarantaine du roi was the forty days set by Louis IX during which an offended man could not take revenge.^[3] Anglo-Norman also used it for a furlong and a square measure of land.^[4]

The sense that dominates today, the isolation of up to forty days imposed on travellers coming from a place struck by a contagious disease, is recorded in 1635.^[5][7] It gave the figurative mettre en quarantaine, to shut someone out of a group, recorded from 1772.^[7] Since Furetière (1690) it has also meant an age of about forty.^[7]

Timeline

• c. 1174–76 – Guernes de Pont-Sainte-Maxence uses quaranteine for “a number of forty”.^[5]
• 1180–90 – It means “a period of forty days”.^[5]
• c. 1200 – It is used for Lent.^[5]
• 1634 – The derivative quarantenaire appears.^[7]
• 1635 – Monet records the sense “isolation imposed on travellers”.^[5][7]
• 1690 – Furetière records the sense “age of forty”.^[7]
• 1772 – The figurative sense “exclusion from a group” appears.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. About forty, a number of roughly forty: une quarantaine de chaises.^[8][9]
2. The age of about forty: elle approche de la quarantaine.^[9][10]
3. Quarantine: a period of isolation imposed on people, animals or goods that may carry a contagious disease.^[8][9]
4. (figurative) Exclusion from a group, chiefly in mettre en quarantaine.^[8][7]
5. (rare) A period of forty days;^[8][3] la sainte quarantaine is Lent.^[8][3]
6. The annual giroflée (stock), a garden flower.^[9][3]

Word family

• quarantenaire

Related words

• quarante
• quarantième
• Latin quadrāgintā

Usage notes

Littré gives the flower, giroflée quarantaine, a headword of its own.^[3] Wiktionary lists crise de la quarantaine, the midlife crisis.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
4. ^ a b c Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
5. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. ^ a b c d e f g h i Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
8. ^ a b c d e Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
9. ^ a b c d Dictionnaire de français Larousse, larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais (accessed 2024)
10. ^ Dictionnaire Le Robert en ligne, dictionnaire.lerobert.com (accessed 2024)