Etymologically
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rivière

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Pronunciation

  • /ʁi.vjɛʁ/[1]

Forms

rivière f (plural rivières)[1] Old French riviere, rivaire, river and rivere.[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old French riviere, inherited from Vulgar Latin *rīpāria,[3][4][5] which must have meant the land near a river or the sea.[2][4] The Latin word, found in many place names from the 8th century and in the sense “coast” in 951, is the feminine, used as a noun, of rīpārius (“found on the banks”), from rīpa (“bank”), the source of rive.[2][3] Littré notes that the sense “land by the water” rules out a derivation from Latin rīvus (“stream”).[6]

Cognate with Spanish ribera (“shore”) and Old Occitan ribiera (“bank; river”); the northern Italian word riviera was borrowed from French.[2][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its first record, riviere in the glosses of Rashi (late 11th century), means a stream;[7][2] about 1138 Gaimar uses it for a watercourse of some size.[3][7]

Semantic evolution

In Old French the word also kept the sense of the bank or shore of a river or sea (about 1112), like rive and rivage, and land along a river; it was a hunting ground for waterfowl, as in aler en riviere (about 1135) and oisel de riviere (about 1285).[7][2] This sense survives only in dialects (“valley” in the south-west) and in phrases such as vins de rivière (1694), wines from the banks of the Marne;[2][4] Molière's veau de rivière (1670) is no longer said.[2]

The modern sense, a stream of middling size, was never sharply set against fleuve.[2] By metaphor rivière is a long flow (1705, Boileau's rivières de sang), and rivière de diamants (1746–47) a necklace of diamonds.[7][2][8] It is also the water jump in show jumping (1855).[2]

Timeline

  • Late 11th century – Riviere “stream” in Rashi's glosses.[7][2]
  • c. 1112 – The bank of a river, in the Voyage de saint Brendan.[3][2]
  • c. 1138 – A watercourse, in Gaimar.[3]
  • c. 1354 – Oiseau de rivière in the Livre de Modus.[3]
  • 1532 – The derivative riverain (as riveran).[2]
  • 1694 – The Académie records vins de rivière.[7]
  • 1746 – Rivière de diamants in La Morlière's Angola.[7][8]
  • 1855 – The water jump of show jumping.[2]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A river, a natural watercourse of middling size, especially one that flows into another.[9][10]
  2. (literary) A long flowing stream of something: une rivière de feu.[10][7]
  3. Rivière de diamants, or rivière alone: a necklace of diamonds.[2][7]
  4. (equestrianism) A water jump.[9][2]

Word family

  • riverain
  • rive
  • ruisseau
  • riviera
  • Latin rīpa

Usage notes

Les petits ruisseaux font les grandes rivières is a proverb (small things add up).[11]

References

  1. ^ a b 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 Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
  4. ^ a b c d Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
  5. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 10, 415b
  6. ^ Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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
  8. ^ a b Quemada, Bernard, ed. (1959–2006), Datations et documents lexicographiques (Base historique du vocabulaire français, BHVF), Paris: Klincksieck / CNRS / Champion; ATILF
  9. ^ a b Dictionnaire Le Robert en ligne, dictionnaire.lerobert.com (accessed 2024)
  10. ^ a b Dictionnaire de français Larousse, larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais (accessed 2024)
  11. ^ Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert