saboter

Pronunciation

• IPA: /sa.bɔ.te/^[1]

Forms

saboter^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from sabot with the verb ending “-er”.^[2][3][4][5] The sense “to botch” may come from the old sense “to shake, knock” (early 14th century, “caboter” in the “Ovide moralisé”, Old Occitan “sabotar”), whence “to torment, mistreat” (Oudin, 1640).^[2][6] Wiktionary repeats the story of mill workers throwing their clogs into machinery.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

About 1300 it meant “to knock, shake”, perhaps in connection with the old sense of sabot “spinning top”;^[3][6][4] Thierry (1564) has it for playing with a top.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Furetière (1690) records “to clatter about in clogs”, still alive regionally, and the dictionaries give it only as intransitive until the late 18th century.^[2][6][4] In 1808 (d'Hautel) it appears with the sense “to do quickly and badly”, now usual (saboter un travail).^[2][6] Technical, neutral uses are “to full cloth” (1832), “to shoe a pile” (1842) and “to notch railway sleepers” (1872–1875).^[2][6]

In 1897 the anarchist Émile Pouget's Le Père Peinard used it for acting so as to make an undertaking fail, and in 1907 it meant deliberately damaging industrial plant, whence sabotage (late 19th century) and saboteur.^[2][3][6] In African French saboter also means to heckle or treat with contempt.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 1300 – “To knock, shake”.^[3]
• 1564 – “To play with a top”.^[2]
• 1640 – “To torment”, in Oudin.^[2]
• 1690 – “To clatter in clogs”.^[2]
• 1808 – “To botch”.^[2]
• 1872 – To notch railway sleepers.^[6]
• 1897 – “To make fail”, in Pouget.^[2]
• 1907 – To damage plant deliberately.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To sabotage: saboter une machine, saboter un projet.^[7][1]
2. To botch, bungle: saboter un travail.^[7][8]
3. (technology) To notch (railway sleepers); to shoe (a pile).^[7][9]
4. (intransitive, dated) To clatter about in clogs.^[9][2]

Word family

• sabotage
• saboteur

Related words

• sabot

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n 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 Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
4. ^ a b c Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
5. ^ Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
7. ^ a b c Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
8. ^ Dictionnaire de français Larousse, larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais (accessed 2024)
9. ^ a b Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse