Etymologically
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seul

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Pronunciation

Forms

seul (feminine seule, masculine plural seuls, feminine plural seules)[1] Old French sols (subject case), sol, sul (object case); seul from about 1175, in Chrétien de Troyes.[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old French sol, inherited from Latin sōlus (“alone, only; solitary, deserted”),[2][3][5][6] a word of unknown origin.[3][7] Littré compared Ancient Greek ὅλος (hólos, “whole”) and Latin salvus.[8] The learned solo, from Italian, is a doublet.[1]

Cognate with Italian solo, Old Occitan sol, Catalan sol, Spanish solo and Portuguese só.[7][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Passion of Clermont (late 10th century) has sols “without help”;[2][3] the Vie de saint Alexis (about 1050) has tut sul “all alone” and un sul “a single one”.[2]

Semantic evolution

In Old French the adjective meant “alone, without company” and “sole, only”, and was used in negation (ne… sol, 1165–1170) and with tout (tout seul, 1080).[3] Seul à seul “in private” goes back to sol a sol (1165, Benoît de Sainte-Maure); it was long treated as invariable, though writers since the 18th century often make both words agree.[2][3] From Latin it also had the sense “deserted” (about 1190), now lost.[3]

Un seul and pas un seul date from the 16th century, seul “by itself alone” (du seul coup de son imagination) from Montaigne (1580), and comme un seul homme from Bossuet (1687).[3][2] In the 17th century it took the sense “without friends or support” (seul contre tous, Molière, 1661, seul dans le monde, Mme de Sévigné, 1680), later seul au monde.[2][3] Cela va tout seul dates from 1679, and in music voix seule (1835) competes with solo.[3] The adverb seulement dates from about 1121.[3]

Timeline

  • Late 10th century – Sols in the Clermont Passion.[2]
  • c. 1050 – Tut sul in Saint Alexis.[2]
  • c. 1121 – Seulement.[3]
  • 1165 – Sol a sol.[2]
  • c. 1175 – The form seul.[4]
  • 1580 – “By itself alone”, in Montaigne.[2]
  • 1661 – Seul contre tous in Molière.[2]
  • 1687 – Comme un seul homme in Bossuet.[2]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Alone, on one's own: vivre seul, tout seul, seul à seul: in private.[7][1]
  2. Lonely, having few ties: se sentir seul, seul au monde.[7][1]
  3. Only, sole, single: un seul exemple, le seul responsable, pas un seul: not a single one.[7][1]
  4. Alone, by itself: la seule pensée de…, à lui seul.[2][7]
  5. Cela va tout seul: it's easy, it goes smoothly.[3]

Noun

  1. Le seul, la seule: the only one: il est le seul à savoir.[7][10]

Word family

  • seulement
  • seulet
  • souleur
  • esseulé
  • seulement
  • esseulé
  • solitude
  • solo
  • solitaire
  • désoler
  • Latin sōlus

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f 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 e f g h i j k l m Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
  4. ^ a b Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
  5. ^ Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
  6. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 12, 78b
  7. ^ a b c d e f g Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
  8. ^ Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
  9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
  10. ^ Dictionnaire Le Robert en ligne, dictionnaire.lerobert.com (accessed 2024)