rive

Forms

rive f (plural rives)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin rīpa (“bank of a river, shore”).^[2][3][4][5] Rey compares the Latin word with Ancient Greek ἐρείπω (ereípō, “to throw down”), and finds no link with rīvus (“stream”), the source of ru and rival.^[3][6] Wiktionary takes it back to Proto-Indo-European *rey- (“to cut, tear”).^[1]

Cognate with Italian riva, Occitan riba, Catalan riba, Spanish riba and Portuguese riba.^[6][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the Chanson de Roland (about 1100) it is the land along a river, the Ebro, where the French make camp: Desur la rive sunt Franceis herbergiez.^[2][8]

Semantic evolution

From the early 12th century rive was also the shore of the sea, a sense it gave up to rivage after the 17th century, keeping it only in poetry.^[3][5] Old French used it for the edge of a well (late 12th century) and, more broadly, for a limit, as in venir a rive “to reach port, overcome a difficulty” and ne trover fonz ne rive “to find no end”.^[2][3] Classical poetry spoke of la rive infernale (Racine, 1674), the underworld beyond the Styx.^[3][9]

By metonymy the word came to mean the land on either side of a river (1797) and the part of a town along a river (1834).^[3] Rive droite and rive gauche named the two halves of Paris on either side of the Seine, and rive gauche became, from 1864, a byword for intellectual and artistic life.^[3][10] In Quebec rive nord and rive sud are the banks of the Saint Lawrence.^[3] The sense “edge” survives in technical use: pain de rive (1549), bread baked at the edge of the oven, and the edge of a flat product (1723) or of a roof.^[3][10]

Timeline

• c. 1100 – Rive appears in the Chanson de Roland, of a riverbank.^[2]
• early 12th century – Used of the seashore in Benedeit's Voyage of Saint Brendan.^[2]
• 1176 – Chrétien de Troyes uses ne trover fonz ne rive “to find no limit”.^[2]
• 1549 – Pain de rive is recorded.^[10][3]
• 1674 – Racine writes la rive infernale.^[3][9]
• 1678 – La Fontaine uses the plural rives for “lands, countries”.^[2]
• 1795 – La rive gauche du Rhin is recorded as a political frontier.^[2]
• 1834 – Balzac uses it of the riverside quarter of a town.^[10][3]
• 1864 – Rive gauche is used alone of the Left Bank of Paris.^[10][3]

Meanings

Noun

1. The bank of a river, a lake or a pond: les rives de la Garonne.^[6][11]
2. Rive droite, rive gauche: the right or left bank of a river, seen facing downstream, and the parts of a town on each side.^[6][8]
3. Rive gauche: the Left Bank of the Seine in Paris, seen as a place of intellectual and artistic life; also as an adjective.^[6][3]
4. The shore of the sea or of a large body of water.^[6][11]
5. (building) The edge of a roof slope above a gable wall.^[11]
6. (technical) The long edge of a flat product, or the edge of a horseshoe.^[11]

Word family

• rivage
• dériver

Related words

• arriver
• rivière
• Latin rīpa

References

1. ^ a b c 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 d e f g h i j k l m n Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
4. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 10, 410b
5. ^ a b Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
6. ^ a b c d e f Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ a b Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
9. ^ a b Quemada, Bernard, ed. (1959–2006), Datations et documents lexicographiques (Base historique du vocabulaire français, BHVF), Paris: Klincksieck / CNRS / Champion; ATILF
10. ^ a b c d e Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
11. ^ a b c d Dictionnaire de français Larousse, larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais (accessed 2024)