rythme

Forms

rythme m (plural rythmes)^[1] Earlier rime (about 1370) and rithme (1512), both feminine; the masculine rythme from 1549.^[2][3][4] Written rhythme until the end of the 19th century.^[5][6][7]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin rhythmus (“movement, regular beat, measure, cadence”),^{[8][4][6][1][9]} itself from Ancient Greek ῥυθμός (rhuthmós, “regular movement, measure, proportion”).^[4][1][10] The Latin word also meant “oratorical rhythm” in rhetoric and, in Medieval Latin, “poem”.^[4] The modern form is a learned remaking, by Du Bellay in 1549, of the earlier rime and rithme.^[4][2]

Rey and Picoche derive the Greek noun from ῥέω (rhéō, “to flow”);^[4][10] according to Benveniste, cited by Rey, it first meant the form taken by something fluid and changing, the arrangement of parts in space, and only from Plato on a pattern in time.^[4] Bloch and Wartburg send the reader to rime.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Nicole Oresme's translation of Aristotle's Politics (1372–1374) has par rithmes et par melodies, in music; the use is isolated.^[8][4]

Semantic evolution

The word was taken up again in the 16th century: Jean Lemaire de Belges (about 1512) names the bard as an inventor of rhythmes, of rhetoric and music,^[8] and Pierre Fabri (1521) and Du Bellay (1549) use it in poetics, for the regular return of stressed and unstressed elements in verse.^[8][4] The Grand Robert notes that in the 16th century it could also mean “rhyme, verse”, as in Pernette du Guillet's Rithmes (1546).^[2] Nicolas Poussin (1647) applies it to the movement of a phrase or poem.^[8][4]

In 1765 the Encyclopédie uses it of the pulse and of sculpture,^[8][4] whence rythme fœtal (1888), rythme cardiaque and rythme respiratoire (1890) and rythme nycthéméral (1907) in physiology.^[8] In everyday use it came to mean the speed at which a vehicle goes (1846) or an action or process takes place, in the cinema from 1917.^[4]

Timeline

• 1372–1374 – Rithme in music, in Oresme's Politiques.^[8]
• c. 1512 – Jean Lemaire de Belges uses rhythme.^[8]
• 1521 – Pierre Fabri uses rithme in poetics.^[8]
• 1549 – Du Bellay writes rythme in the Deffence et illustration de la langue françoyse.^[8][2]
• 1647 – Nicolas Poussin uses it of the movement of a phrase.^[8]
• 1765 – The Encyclopédie applies it to the pulse and to sculpture.^[8]
• 1846 – Used of the speed of a vehicle.^[4]
• 1890 – Rythme cardiaque and rythme respiratoire.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. The regular return of a phenomenon at intervals: the rhythm of the seasons, of the tides.^[11][8]
2. (music) The rhythm of a piece, the pattern of durations and of strong and weak beats.^[11][7]
3. (prosody) The pattern of stresses, pauses and syllables that marks verse off from prose; the general movement of a sentence or text.^[12][5]
4. The pace at which an action or process goes on: travailler à son rythme.^[11][12]
5. (physiology) A periodic process of the body: rythme cardiaque, rythme respiratoire.^[8][7]
6. (art) The ordering of forms that gives a sense of movement in a work.^[8][4]

Word family

• rythmer
• rythmé

Related words

• rime
• rythmique
• arythmie
• eurythmie
• Latin rhythmus
• Ancient Greek ῥυθμός (rhuthmós)

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
3. ^ Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
4. ^ 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
5. ^ a b Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
6. ^ a b c Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
7. ^ a b c Wiktionnaire (French Wiktionary), fr.wiktionary.org
8. ^ 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
9. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 10, 385b
10. ^ a b Picoche, Jacqueline (1991), Dictionnaire étymologique du français, Paris: Le Robert (Les Usuels du Robert)
11. ^ a b c Dictionnaire de français Larousse, larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais (accessed 2024)
12. ^ a b Dictionnaire Le Robert en ligne, dictionnaire.lerobert.com (accessed 2024)