sou

Forms

sou m (plural sous)^[1] Old French solt (end of the 11th century), sol (about 1175) and sou (about 1200).^[2][3][4] Anglo-Norman sol, sold, soud, sou.^[5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old French sol, inherited from Late Latin solidus (“gold coin”) (early 5th century), also in the form soldus, the noun use of the classical adjective Latin solidus (“solid, massive”).^[6][2][3][7] The coin was named for being of solid gold, a coin of fixed value of the imperial period.^[2][8] The form ⟨sou⟩ is a remaking of the older ⟨solt⟩ and ⟨sol⟩ about 1200.^[2] The Petit Robert relates the Latin adjective to an Indo-European root meaning “whole, entire”, also behind salvus (“safe”).^[9]

Cognate with Old Occitan sou (1157), Italian soldo, Catalan sou and Spanish sueldo.^[2][9] It is a doublet of solide.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Lois de Guillaume le Conquérant (about 1130) speak of cent solz de forfait, a fine of a hundred sous.^[6][10]

Semantic evolution

Until the end of the Ancien Régime the sol, later sou, was a coin worth one twentieth of the livre, or twelve deniers, first of gold, then of silver and other metals.^[2][6] It was qualified by the place where it was struck, as sol parisis (1350) and sol tournois (1547).^[2] In Old French it also meant soldiers' pay (about 1170), a sense later taken over by solde, borrowed from Italian.^[2]

After the decimal system was introduced, the word was kept for the five-centime piece, a twentieth of the franc, and gros sou (1845) for the ten-centime piece;^[2][8] cent sous meant five francs (1871).^[2][8] Because a sou was worth little, the word came to mean a small amount, and many phrases express having no money: n'avoir le sou (1561), pas un sou vaillant (1690), être sans le sou (1775), whence the noun sans-le-sou (1875).^[2] In Quebec it is the familiar word for a cent.^[9][1]

English sou (1550s) was formed from the plural sous.^[11]

Timeline

• c. 1130 – Solz in the Lois de Guillaume le Conquérant.^[6]
• c. 1170 – Souz “soldiers' pay”.^[2]
• c. 1175 – The form sol in Chrétien de Troyes.^[4]
• c. 1200 – The form sou appears.^[2][3]
• 1350 – Sol parisis, the sou struck at Paris.^[2]
• 1550s – English borrows sou.^[11]
• 1561 – N'avoir le sou “to have no money”.^[2]
• 1690 – Furetière uses it for any coin.^[2][4]
• 1694 – The Académie records n'avoir pas le sou.^[4][12]
• 1845 – Gros sou, the ten-centime piece.^[2]
• 1893 – Propre comme un sou neuf in the Dictionnaire général.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. (historical) A coin and money of account worth one twentieth of the livre, or twelve deniers.^[9][6]
2. (dated) The five-centime piece, a twentieth of the franc: cent sous “five francs”.^[9][2]
3. (Quebec, familiar) A cent: un sou noir, a one-cent coin.^[9][1]
4. (familiar, in the plural) Money: avoir des sous, compter ses sous.^[1][4]
5. Machine à sous: a slot machine.^[9][1]
6. Sans le sou, ne pas avoir un sou: penniless.^[1][2]
7. Propre comme un sou neuf: spotlessly clean.^[9][1]
8. Pas pour un sou, pas pour deux sous: not in the least: il n'est pas jaloux pour deux sous.^[1][2]

Word family

• sans-le-sou
• grippe-sou

Related words

• sol
• solide
• soudard
• souder
• soudoyer
• solde
• Latin solidus
• English sou

Usage notes

The old form sol survived in some phrases until the 18th century and was still recorded by the Académie in 1798;^[2] Féraud (1788) called it archaic on its own, though it was later used for effect by Stendhal and Maupassant.^[2] Already in 1662 Tabourot des Accords noted that un sol was pronounced un sou.^[10]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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 Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
3. ^ a b c Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
4. ^ a b c d e f Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
5. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
6. ^ a b c d e 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
7. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 12, 49b
8. ^ a b c Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
9. ^ a b c d e f g h Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
10. ^ a b Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
11. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
12. ^ Quemada, Bernard, ed. (1959–2006), Datations et documents lexicographiques (Base historique du vocabulaire français, BHVF), Paris: Klincksieck / CNRS / Champion; ATILF