Etymologically
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sud

Etymology and origin of the French word sud

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Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
c. 1138, Geffrei Gaimar
Borrowed from
Old English sūþ
Ultimate origin
Old English (sūþ)

Pronunciation

Forms

sud m (invariable)[1] Suth (about 1138), su (13th century, Marie de France), sud (about 1170); sailors still pronounce the compounds without ⟨d⟩ (suet, suroît).[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Old English sūþ (“south”) (English south),[5][2][6][7] a word that may belong to an Indo-European root “*su-” “sun”, like English sun and Latin sōl, the south being the side of the sun.[2] Wiktionary notes that the vowel of “est” shows that the French compass points came from English rather than Dutch or Norse.[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Geffrei Gaimar's Estoire des Engleis (about 1138) has suth for the part of the world opposite the north;[5][2] Denis Piramus (late 12th century) speaks of le vent du su.[5]

Semantic evolution

About 1170 (Livre des Rois) it named the southern region of a country: Li uns rochiers muntout al north, et li altres al sud.[5][4] The wind from the south is a sud from 1596, and sailors font le sud (1812).[2][5] The invariable adjective appears in latitude sud (Trévoux, 1721) and of a wind (le vent étoit sud, 1783).[5][8] With a capital it names the southern hemisphere and its countries (l'Amérique du Sud), and in modern usage the developing countries as opposed to the industrialised North.[2][9]

Sudiste (1872) named a partisan of the South in the American Civil War.[2] Sud-est (suth est, about 1155) and sud-ouest (zuutwest, 1421) took their modern forms in the 17th century, and calques of English such as sud-américain (1865) and sud-africain (1890) put sud- first.[2]

Timeline

  • c. 1138 – Suth in Gaimar.[5]
  • c. 1155 – Suth est.[2]
  • c. 1170 – Sud in the Livre des Rois.[3]
  • 1421 – Zuutwest.[2]
  • 1596 – The south wind.[2]
  • 1721 – Latitude sud.[5]
  • 1865 – Sud-américain.[2]
  • 1872 – Sudiste.[2]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The south: au sud de la Loire, plein sud, vent du sud.[10][1]
  2. (capitalised) The southern part of a country or the world: le Sud de la France, l'Amérique du Sud.[10][9]
  3. (capitalised) The developing countries.[9]

Adjective

  1. South, southern: le pôle Sud, la banlieue sud; of a wind, southerly.[10][8]

Word family

  • sudiste
  • sud-est
  • sud-ouest
  • suroît

References

  1. ^ a b c d 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 Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
  4. ^ a b Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h 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
  6. ^ Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
  7. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 17, 267b
  8. ^ a b Quemada, Bernard, ed. (1959–2006), Datations et documents lexicographiques (Base historique du vocabulaire français, BHVF), Paris: Klincksieck / CNRS / Champion; ATILF
  9. ^ a b c Dictionnaire de français Larousse, larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais (accessed 2024)
  10. ^ a b c Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert

Related etymologies

  • étai · also from Old English
  • ouest · also from Old English
  • nord · also from Old English
Cite this entry

“Sud.” Etymologically, 17 Oct. 2026, etymologically.com/fr/sud. Accessed 17 Oct. 2026.

Last edited on . ·