seuil

Forms

seuil m (plural seuils)^[1] Old French suil, suel, sueil and soil.^[2][3] The form seuil, remade after words in -euil, is found from about 1352, and sueil was still used in the 16th century.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old French suil, inherited from Latin solea (“sandal, shoe of a hoof”), which in Late Latin also meant a kind of floor.^[2][5][3][6] The TLFi and Bloch and Wartburg say that the word took its masculine gender and its sense from solum (“ground, base”);^[2][6] Wiktionary sets up a Vulgar Latin *solium, blending the nouns for ground and for sandal,^[1] and Littré too starts from a Late Latin form of that shape.^[7] Bloch and Wartburg note that the final consonant of the Old French form sueil was palatal.^[6] Rey connects the Latin noun for ground with an Indo-European root for a human settlement.^[3]

Cognate with Italian soglia, Portuguese solho (“floor”) and Picard sol (feminine).^[8][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found as suil in the Livre des Rois (about 1170), for the slab of stone or beam of wood at the foot of a doorway;^[2] Rey and the GLLF date the sense “entrance of a house” to about 1160, in Benoît de Sainte-Maure.^[3][9]

Semantic evolution

From the doorstep the word spread to other lower pieces of an opening: the frame of a window (early 13th century, an isolated record), the sill under the gate of a lock (1392), the beam that receives a drawbridge (1506).^[2][3] Rabelais used it in 1552 for a place by which one enters, here the mouth of a harbour.^[2]

Figuratively it marked the beginning of something, or the limit between one state and another, as in d'Aubigné's sueil de la mort (1630).^[2][3] In the 19th century science took it up for the lowest intensity of a stimulus that can be perceived, seuil de la conscience (1865) and seuil de l'excitation (1904), and since 1924 a limit in general.^[2][3] The Petit Robert notes that this sense translates German Schwelle.^[10] Since most door sills are raised, it also came to mean a rise in a sea floor, a river bed or a glacier valley (1886 in oceanography, 1906 in geography).^[2][3]

Timeline

• c. 1170 – Suil appears in the Livre des Rois for a door sill.^[2]
• 1176 – Chrétien de Troyes writes suel in Cligès.^[2]
• c. 1352 – The spelling seuil appears.^[3][10]
• 1392 – Suez is used at Tournai for the sill of a lock gate.^[2]
• 1552 – Rabelais uses it for the entrance of a harbour.^[2]
• 1630 – D'Aubigné writes sueil de la mort.^[2]
• 1865 – Seuil de la conscience appears in psychology.^[2]
• 1886 – Loti uses it in oceanography.^[2]
• 1924 – Used in biology for a lower limit.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A threshold, the stone slab or wooden beam at the foot of a doorway.^[10][2][1]
2. The entrance of a house, the doorstep: la voisine attendait sur le seuil.^[10][2]
3. (figurative) The beginning of something: au seuil de l'hiver.^[10][7]
4. A level or limit at which something changes, such as the minimal intensity of a perceived stimulus: seuil de pauvreté.^[10][2][1]
5. (geography) A raised part of a sea floor, river bed or glacier valley.^[10][2]
6. (technical) The sill of an opening, such as that under the gate of a lock.^[7][2]

Word family

• seuillage

Related words

• sole
• sol¹
• Latin solea
• Latin solum

References

1. ^ a b c d e 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 r s t u v 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 Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
4. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
5. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 12, 38b
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 d Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
10. ^ a b c d e f g Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert