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renne

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Etymology and origin of the French word renne

Confidence
Probable
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
1552 translation of Münster's Cosmographie More words from the 16th century
Borrowed from
German Reen
Ultimate origin
Swedish ren

Pronunciation

  • France: /ʁɛn/[1]
  • Belgium, Quebec: /ʁɛn/[1]
  • Belgium, Quebec: /ʁɛːn/[1]

Forms

renne m (plural rennes)[1] First written reen (1552); renne from 1678.[2][3] It was feminine in the 17th and 18th centuries.[3][4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from German Reen (16th century) according to the Rey dictionaries and Bloch and Wartburg, a word itself taken from Scandinavian: Swedish ren, Icelandic hreinn.[5][6][3] The TLFi takes it straight from Norwegian or Swedish.[2] Wiktionary also names Norwegian Nynorsk rein as a source.[1] The spelling ⟨renne⟩ is a Frenchified form of ⟨reen⟩.[5]

Another Icelandic form, hreindýri, gave German Rentier and English reindeer;[2][5][6] Old French had rangier (13th century, Jean de Meun), which the TLFi takes from Danish rendyr and which survived as a term of heraldry.[2][5][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found as reen in 1552, in a French translation of the German Sebastian Münster's Cosmographie, cited as a foreign word: “a beast they call reen”.[2][6][5]

Semantic evolution

The word kept the sense of its source, a large deer of northern Europe herded in Lapland, and by metonymy came to name its dressed hide and its meat.[5][4] Littré notes that several naturalists made it feminine.[7] The old phrase âge du renne named the Upper Palaeolithic.[4]

Timeline

  • 1552 – Reen appears in the translation of Münster's Cosmographie.[2][6]
  • 1678 – The spelling renne appears in the Journal des savants.[2]
  • 1680 – Richelet records renne.[8][5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A reindeer, a large cervidé with flattened, branching antlers, living in the cold regions of the northern hemisphere and domesticated by some peoples.[2][4]
  2. The dressed hide of the reindeer.[4][5]
  3. Reindeer meat.[4][5]

Usage notes

The Petit Robert marks âge du renne (the Upper Palaeolithic) as old.[4] Renne sounds like reine and rêne.[4]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ 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
  3. ^ a b c Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
  6. ^ a b c d e Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
  7. ^ Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
  8. ^ Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Renne.” Etymologically, 15 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/fr/renne. Accessed 15 Nov. 2026.

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