résistance

Forms

résistance f (plural résistances)^[1] First written resistence (late 13th century); resistance is found from about 1375, and Paré writes résistance about 1560.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Late Latin resistentia (“resistance”), an ecclesiastical Late Latin word of the late 4th or early 5th century, from resistō (“to stand still; to withstand”), the source of résister.^[2][1][4] The Latin verb is formed from re- and sistō (“to stop, stand”).^[5] The Grand Robert, the GLLF and Bloch and Wartburg treat the noun instead as derived in French from the verb.^[6][3][5]

Compare Old Occitan resistencia, Spanish resistencia and Italian resistenza.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found at the end of the 13th century in Mahieu le Vilain's translation of Aristotle's Meteorology, as resistence, for the quality by which one body withstands the action of another.^[2][7]

Semantic evolution

All the physical senses were already present in medieval French: Oresme (about 1370–1375) uses the word for a force that opposes or cancels another and for the quality of what holds out.^[2][7] Pièce de résistance, a substantial dish, is recorded by the Académie in 1798.^[2] Science developed the concrete sense: résistance des matériaux (1875) and, in electricity, the ratio of voltage to current (1883) and, by metonymy, a conductor made to give off heat (1883), a sense that passed into everyday use.^[7][2]

The word was used of armed defence against force from 1404 (Christine de Pizan), of moral resistance from 1527 and of resisting authority from 1530;^[2][7] Marguerite de Navarre used it of refusing a lover (1549).^[2][7] The Revolution gave the droit de résistance à l'oppression (1791), and under the July Monarchy the parti de la Résistance was the conservative party, opposed to the parti du mouvement.^[7][2] In June 1940 de Gaulle spoke of la flamme de la résistance française, and la Résistance became the name of the struggle against the German occupation and of the movements that carried it on.^[2][7] In psychoanalysis the word is recorded from 1907.^[2]

Timeline

• Late 13th century – Resistence in Mahieu le Vilain.^[2]
• c. 1375 – The sense in physics, in Oresme.^[2]
• 1404 – Armed resistance, in Christine de Pizan.^[2]
• 1530 – Resistance to established authority, in Palsgrave.^[2]
• 1791 – Droit de résistance à l'oppression.^[7]
• 1798 – Pièce de résistance in the Académie dictionary.^[2]
• 1842 – Parti de la résistance in the Académie's supplement.^[2]
• 1883 – Electrical resistance.^[2]
• 1907 – The psychoanalytic sense.^[2]
• 1940 – De Gaulle's la flamme de la résistance française.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The fact of withstanding a force or action: la résistance d'un métal à la corrosion.^[8][2]
2. A force that opposes another: la résistance de l'air.^[8][2]
3. (science) The capacity to withstand a force, résistance des matériaux, the strength of materials.^[8][7]
4. (electricity) Electrical resistance; a resistor or heating element: la résistance d'un grille-pain.^[8][2]
5. Strength, endurance: manquer de résistance.^[8][1]
6. Plat de résistance: the main course of a meal.^[8][2]
7. Opposition to an attack or to authority; refusal to obey: opposer une résistance farouche.^[8][2]
8. (historical) La Résistance: the French Resistance to the German occupation in the Second World War.^[2][7]
9. (psychoanalysis) Unconscious opposition to bringing repressed material to light.^[2][7]

Word family

• résistanciel

Related words

• résister
• résistant
• Latin resistentia

References

1. ^ a b c d 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 t u v w x y z 27 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 Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
4. ^ a b Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
5. ^ a b Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
6. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
8. ^ a b c d e f g Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert