sien

Forms

sien (feminine sienne, masculine plural siens, feminine plural siennes)^[1] Old French suon, soen, suen, plural and subject suens.^[2][3][4] Old French feminine soue, soie, seie, and in Picard sieue.^[2][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old French suen, inherited from Latin suus (“his, her, their own”), through its stressed accusative ⟨suum⟩.^{[2][3][5][4][6]} The TLFi traces ⟨suum⟩ to the Old French form by a differentiation of the two vowels, then diphthongisation and loss of the final ⟨u⟩.^[4] The form with ⟨ie⟩ (about 1165) was remade after mien.^[2][5][4]

The feminine is analogical too: it replaced Old French soue, from the stressed accusative ⟨suam⟩, with the variants soie (about 1180), formed after moie, and seie (1214).^[2][3][4] The Picard sieue followed mieue.^[4] Rey traces the Latin word to an Indo-European root Proto-Indo-European *swe- marking that a person belongs to a group or stands apart, also seen, extended, in Ancient Greek ἔθος (éthos, “custom”) and ἔθνος (éthnos, “people”).^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The oldest record is the oblique feminine suo in the Strasbourg Oaths (842), in de suo part “on his part”.^[4][5][3] The Sequence of St Eulalia (881) has Par souue clementia “by his mercy”.^[4]

Semantic evolution

As an adjective beside a noun, “his, her own”, the word has been literary since the late 12th century.^[2][5] Old French also used it on its own, as in maugré suen “against his will” (1176, Chrétien de Troyes).^[4] As a noun, le sien meant “his property” (1130), a sense now kept only in y mettre du sien (1696) “to do one's part, show goodwill”.^[2] The plural les siens (about 1240) means one's family, friends or supporters, and faire des siennes (1558) “to play one's usual tricks”.^[2] The pronoun of possession le sien is found in Boileau in 1669.^[2]

Timeline

• 842 – Suo in the Strasbourg Oaths.^[4][3]
• 881 – Souue in the Sequence of St Eulalia.^[4]
• 1080 – Soen in the Chanson de Roland.^[2][5][7]
• 1130 – Le sien “his property”.^[2]
• c. 1165 – Sien, remade after mien, in Benoît de Sainte-Maure's Roman de Troie.^[4][2]
• c. 1240 – Les siens “one's family and followers”.^[2]
• c. 1260 – The feminine sienne in the Récits d'un ménestrel de Reims.^[4]
• 1558 – Faire des siennes.^[2]
• 1696 – Y mettre du sien.^[2]

Meanings

Pronoun

1. Le sien, la sienne, les siens, les siennes: his, hers, its (one): Ta voiture est plus rapide que la sienne.^[8][9][4]

Adjective

1. (literary) His or her own: faire siennes les idées de quelqu'un, to adopt them as one's own.^[9][8][1]

Noun

1. Y mettre du sien: to do one's share, show goodwill.^[8][2]
2. Les siens: one's family, friends or supporters.^[8][2]
3. (familiar) Faire des siennes: to get up to one's usual tricks.^[8][2]

Related words

• mien
• tien
• son¹
• soi
• se
• Latin suus

Usage notes

Littré notes that the ⟨n⟩ is sounded in liaison only when sien comes before its noun, as in un sien ami.^[7]

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 n o p q r s Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
3. ^ a b c d e Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o 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. ^ a b c d e Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
6. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 12, 481b
7. ^ a b Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
8. ^ a b c d e Dictionnaire Le Robert en ligne, dictionnaire.lerobert.com (accessed 2024)
9. ^ a b Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert