rigoureux

Forms

rigoureux (feminine rigoureuse, masculine plural rigoureux, feminine plural rigoureuses)^[1] Middle French rigoreux (1385) and riguoreuse (1382); the form with -ou- is a 15th-century remaking.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Late Latin rigōrōsus, a derivative of rigor (“stiffness, cold, severity”).^[3][2][4] The Late Latin word meant very cold in Chiron's veterinary treatise, and Medieval Latin used it for severe or inflexible.^[3] The French form was remade in the 15th century after rigueur.^[4][5] The derivative rigoureusement, recorded about 1220, shows that the adjective is older than its first records.^[4][5]

Cognate with Old Occitan rigoros, Catalan rigorós, Spanish riguroso and Italian rigoroso.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found about 1330 in Guillaume de Digulleville's Pèlerinage de vie humaine, meaning “inflexibly severe”.^[3][7]

Semantic evolution

The strong moral sense “severe, unbending”, applied to people and to rules (morale rigoureuse), was the first, and is now felt as dated;^[4][5] the GLLF dates the sense “prescribing very strict rules” to Desportes (1573).^[5] From the end of the 14th century the word was also used of things hard to bear, as in riguoreuse justice (1382),^[3][4] and in particular, from 1640, of a harsh climate or a severe winter.^[3][4]

About 1530 Marot uses it for what shows strict exactness,^[3][4] and in the intellectual sphere the adjective came to mean “proceeding with great precision”, a sense the GLLF dates to the Robert of 1964.^[5][4] The adverb rigoureusement went the same way: from “with great vigour” (about 1220) and “severely” (14th century) to “scrupulously” (1559) and “strictly, absolutely”, as in rigoureusement exact (1798).^[4]

Timeline

• c. 1220 – The adverb rigoureusement is recorded.^[4]
• c. 1330 – Guillaume de Digulleville uses the adjective for “inflexibly severe”.^[3]
• 1382 – Riguoreuse justice “harsh justice” shows the sense “hard to bear”.^[3]
• 1385 – The spelling rigoreux is recorded.^[2][5]
• 1529 – Marot uses it for “strictly exact”.^[3]
• 1573 – Desportes uses it for “prescribing strict rules”.^[5]
• 1640 – Perrot d'Ablancourt applies it to a harsh climate.^[3]
• 1964 – The Robert records the sense “intellectually rigorous”.^[5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of a person or a rule: showing great rigour, severe, inflexible, austere.^[7][3][5]
2. Hard to bear, harsh: un châtiment rigoureux, and of weather un hiver rigoureux, a harsh winter.^[7][6]
3. Strictly exact, admitting no deviation: une rigoureuse neutralité.^[7]
4. Carried out with great precision, rigorous: of a reasoning, an analysis or a method.^[7][5][1]

Word family

• rigoureusement

Related words

• rigueur
• rigide
• Latin rigor

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c 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 i j k l 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
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
6. ^ a b Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
7. ^ a b c d e Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert