saveur

Forms

saveur f (plural saveurs)^[1] Old French savor (12th century) and savour (about 1190); saveur is recorded from 1256.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old French savor, inherited from Latin sapor (“taste, flavour”).^[4][2][1][5] In Latin the word also meant “smell, perfume” and “the act of tasting”, and in the plural “delicacies” and “the senses”; it was used figuratively too, of a man without character.^[2] It is formed on sapiō (“to have a taste”), the source of savoir.^[2][6]

Cognate with Italian sapore, Old Occitan sabor, Catalan sabor, Spanish sabor and Portuguese sabor.^[7][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the Roman d'Eneas (about 1160) savor is used figuratively for a seasoning, as Lavine asks Love to soothe her pain with some good savour; the same text uses it of the taste of a kiss.^[4]

Semantic evolution

From the 12th century the word meant both the quality perceived by taste and, figuratively, charm or appeal.^[2][4] In Old French it also named a sauce or seasoning, “what gives taste” (in the Roman de Renart, 1174–1177), and in the plural vegetables for soup (1239, still recorded in 1667).^[2][4] It took up the Latin sense “smell” about 1240, a sense lost in France but kept in Quebec, where it is the flavour of an ice cream.^[2] Through its link with sapere “to know” it meant knowledge of something in Middle French (1440–1475).^[2]

Used of a person, it meant worth or character (1240–1280); of things it is recorded by Montaigne (1588), and of a work of the mind, its piquant character, by the Académie in 1718.^[4][3] In the arts it has meant what pleases the taste since about 1820.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 1160 – Savor “seasoning” and “taste” in the Roman d'Eneas.^[4]
• 1174–1177 – Savor for a sauce in the Roman de Renart.^[4]
• 1239 – Savors “soup vegetables”.^[2]
• c. 1240 – Sense “smell, perfume”.^[2]
• 1256 – The form saveur in Aldebrandin of Siena.^[3][2]
• 1588 – Montaigne uses it figuratively of things.^[4]
• 1718 – The Académie records it for the piquancy of a work of the mind.^[4][3]

Meanings

Noun

1. taste, flavour: the quality perceived by the sense of taste: une saveur de noisette.^[8][4]
2. (figurative) The charm or piquancy of something, what makes it pleasing: la saveur d'un récit.^[8][3]
3. (Quebec) The flavour of a food product, as of an ice cream.^[2]

Word family

• savourer
• savoureux

Related words

• savoir
• Latin sapor

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
3. ^ a b c d e 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 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
5. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 11, 206a
6. ^ a b Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ a b Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert