race

Forms

race f (plural races)^[1] Middle French rasse (about 1480) beside race.^[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Italian razza (“family, breed of animals”), recorded about 1300 as razzo, with the feminine ending from the 14th century.^{[2][3][4][5][6][1]} The DHLF leaves open whether the source was Italian, Old Occitan rassa (“band of conspirators, plot”) (1180) or a word of the same shape in the dialects of northern Italy, meaning an agreement among the members of a family or a trade;^[7][8] Bloch and Wartburg regard all these as the same word.^[7][8]

The origin of the Italian word is disputed.^[2][7] The FEW, after Canello, Spitzer and Prati, derives the Italian word from the Latin nominative ratiō (“reckoning, account, system”), which in Christian Latin meant “idea, conception of a thing”, hence “model of a living being, race”;^[2][9] Italian ragione meant “kind, race” from the 13th to the 17th century.^[2][9] Bloch and Wartburg point to a learned use of this Latin word for “species of animals or fruits” from the 6th century.^[8][5] Merk, following Salvioni and Meyer-Lübke, derives it by aphaeresis from generātiō (“begetting, generation”), with a 16th-century form Venetian naraccia of Belluno as an intermediate step, and points to Old French generace “family” (13th century).^[2][7][10] The DHLF finds this more probable, and the Petit Robert sees a cross of the two Latin words.^[7][4] Littré followed Diez in deriving it from Old High German reiza (“line”), and ruled out Latin rādīx.^[11]

The Italian word also gave Spanish raza.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

About 1480 the Mystère du Viel Testament has rasse and race for all the ancestors and descendants of one family or people: “Destruyt sera, luy et sa race” (he will be destroyed, he and his race).^[2][12]

Semantic evolution

About 1500 Commynes speaks of races des chevaulx, breeds of horses, and chien de race “pedigree dog” is recorded in 1740.^[2][7] The genealogical sense grew in the 16th century: offspring (1549), a generation (1552), origin or descent (1558), noble birth (1579), and a line of kings of France (1636).^[2][7] By extension it was used of a wider community seen as a lineage, as in la race humaine, and, often disparagingly, of a class of people with the same trade or character (1564).^[7][2]

The sense of a human population marked by hereditary traits appears in 1684 in François Bernier and spread after Buffon (1749).^[2][7] In the 19th century it was taken up by theories of human inequality, beginning with Gobineau's Essai sur l'inégalité des races humaines (1853), which led to raciste and racisme (1932).^[7][8] The DHLF notes that the word is now archaic in the genealogical sense and discredited for human beings, so that it cannot be used without caution;^[7][6] Larousse calls the classification of humans by race unscientific.^[7][6]

Applied to a person, avoir de la race “to have breeding, distinction” is recorded from 1836.^[7][5] In the French of North Africa de ta race became part of insults, and in the speech of young people, reduced to sa race, it is now a mere intensifier.^[7]

Timeline

• c. 1480 – Rasse and race in the Mystère du Viel Testament.^[2]
• c. 1500 – Commynes uses it for a breed of horses.^[2][7]
• 1512 – Jean Lemaire de Belges uses it for a family line.^[5][7]
• 1549 – Du Bellay uses it for “offspring”.^[2]
• 1564 – Used for a class of people with the same trade or character.^[2]
• 1636 – Monet records race de Pepin for a line of kings.^[2]
• 1684 – Bernier uses it for human populations.^[2]
• 1740 – Chien de race is recorded.^[7][5]
• 1749 – Buffon writes of la race Lappone.^[2]
• 1836 – Avoir de la race is recorded.^[7]
• 1932 – The derivatives racisme and raciste appear.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. (literary) A family considered through its succession of generations, a lineage, especially a great or royal family.^[4][5][2]
2. (dated) Descendants, posterity; a generation.^[4][7]
3. (dated) A wider community seen as one lineage: la race humaine.^[4][7]
4. (familiar) A category of people sharing a trade, a taste or a character, often said disparagingly.^[2][7]
5. A grouping of humans by physical or cultural traits, a classification with no scientific basis.^[6][7]
6. (zoology) A breed, a subdivision of a species with inherited traits in common: chien de race, a pedigree dog.^[6][7][1]
7. Avoir de la race: to have breeding, distinction.^[7][13]
8. (slang) Sa race, ta race: used as an intensifier or in insults.^[7]

Word family

• racisme
• raciste
• racé
• racial

Related words

• Italian razza
• English race

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 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. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
4. ^ a b c d e Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
5. ^ a b c d e f Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
6. ^ a b c d e Dictionnaire de français Larousse, larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais (accessed 2024)
7. ^ 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 Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
8. ^ a b c d e Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
9. ^ a b Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 10, 111b
10. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 3732
11. ^ Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
12. ^ Dictionnaire du Moyen Français, version 2015 (DMF 2015), ATILF – CNRS & Université de Lorraine, atilf.fr/dmf
13. ^ Quemada, Bernard, ed. (1959–2006), Datations et documents lexicographiques (Base historique du vocabulaire français, BHVF), Paris: Klincksieck / CNRS / Champion; ATILF