rhume

Forms

rhume m (plural rhumes)^[1] Old French reume (1226) and rume (about 1276), remade after the Latin and Greek as rheume (1575) and rhume (1578).^[2][3] The spelling rhume became established in the 17th century.^[4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Late Latin rheuma (“flow of the sea, catarrh”).^[2][3][1] The Latin word is from Ancient Greek ῥεῦμα (rheûma, “flow, stream”), which Greek medicine applied to a discharge of humours; it is derived from ῥέω (rhéō, “to flow”).^[3][5][1] Compare Old Occitan rauma, Spanish reuma and Portuguese reuma.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record, reume in Guillaume le Clerc's Besant de Dieu (1226), means a humour running from the nose or the eyes.^[2][3] Joinville writes of a reume si grant en la teste, que le reume me filoit de la teste parmi les nariles “a rheum so great in the head that it ran from my head through my nostrils”.^[5]

Semantic evolution

Until the early 17th century the word was both masculine and feminine; classical French fixed it as masculine, but the feminine survives in dialects.^[3][2][7]

The narrow sense of a flow of humour lasted until the 17th century.^[3] The modern sense, an inflammation of the lining of the nose and throat with that discharge, began in the 13th-century phrase reume de froidure and then stood alone.^[2][3] Rhume de cerveau (1740, after rhume du cerveau in 1694) reflects the old belief that the brain and the nose were connected.^[3][2] Medicine later applied the word to other inflammations: rhume de poitrine (1786) for bronchitis, and jokingly rhume ecclésiastique (1718) for the pox, both now out of use.^[3] Rhume des foins (1901), hay fever, may translate German Heuschnupfen.^[2][3] The figurative en prendre pour son rhume “to be given a severe dressing-down” is recorded in Courteline in 1899.^[3][8]

Of all its derivatives only enrhumer has survived.^[3]

Timeline

• 1226 – Reume appears in Guillaume le Clerc's Besant de Dieu.^[2]
• 13th century – Reume de froidure names a cold.^[2]
• c. 1276 – The form rume is found in Adam de la Halle.^[2]
• 1578 – The spelling rhume appears.^[2][3]
• 1694 – The Académie records rhume du cerveau.^[2]
• 1740 – Rhume de cerveau is recorded.^[2][3]
• 1899 – En prendre pour son rhume appears in Courteline.^[8][3]
• 1901 – Rhume des foins is recorded.^[2][3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A cold: an inflammation of the mucous membranes of the nose and airways, with a runny nose and often a cough: attraper un rhume.^[9][2][1]
2. Rhume de cerveau: a head cold, coryza.^[9][2]
3. Rhume des foins: hay fever.^[9][3]
4. (familiar) En prendre pour son rhume: to get a severe telling-off or a sharp correction.^[2][8]

Word family

• enrhumer

Related words

• Latin rheuma
• Ancient Greek ῥεῦμα (rheûma)

References

1. ^ a b c d e 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 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 d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
4. ^ Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
5. ^ a b Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
7. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 10, 377a
8. ^ a b c Quemada, Bernard, ed. (1959–2006), Datations et documents lexicographiques (Base historique du vocabulaire français, BHVF), Paris: Klincksieck / CNRS / Champion; ATILF
9. ^ a b c Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert