tige

Forms

tige f (plural tiges)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old French tige, inherited from Latin tībia (“flute, shinbone”).^[2][1][3] In popular Latin the word for the shinbone had taken the figurative sense of the long part of a plant that bears the leaves, the stem.^[4][5][6] Littré describes it as the leg of a plant or tree.^[7] The learned tibia is a doublet borrowed from the same Latin word.^[1][4]

Outside French the Latin word survives only in Sardinian tíviu.^[4][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the Chanson de Roland (about 1100) it means the trunk of a tree: Ganelon leans against a pine à la tige.^[2][7]

Semantic evolution

The word was used for the straight central part of a tree as well as of other plants (about 1375); in ordinary modern usage tronc has taken over for trees, but gardeners still speak of arbre de haute tige and basse tige.^[4][8]

From the 16th century it took figurative senses: in genealogy the ancestor from whom the branches of a family come (1559), whence faire tige “to found a line” (late 17th century), and “origin” (1560), now gone.^[4][2] Concretely it named the long part of various objects (1382), such as the shank of a key (1676), the shaft of a column (1567) and the leg of a boot (1660).^[4][2] Slang used it for a cigarette (1905), a sense kept in African French, and les vieilles tiges for the first aviators (1920), from a familiar name of the control stick.^[4][2]

Timeline

• c. 1100 – Tige appears in the Chanson de Roland for a tree trunk.^[2]
• 1382 – Used for iron bars making the shanks of galley anchors.^[2]
• 1559 – Amyot uses it for the founder of a family.^[2][9]
• 1567 – Architectural sense, the shaft of a column.^[2]
• 1660 – The leg of a boot.^[2]
• 1676 – The shank of a key.^[2]
• 1703 – Arbre de tige in arboriculture.^[2]
• 1815 – The diminutive tigelle is formed.^[5][4]
• 1905 – Slang sense “cigarette”.^[2]
• 1920 – Vieille tige, an aviator licensed before 1914.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. (botany) The stem of a plant, the part that grows above the root and bears the leaves.^[8][2]
2. (arboriculture) A young tree with a single stem: arbre de haute tige, a standard tree.^[8]
3. (figurative) The ancestor from whom the branches of a family descend: faire tige, to have descendants.^[8][2]
4. A long, slender part of an object, such as a rod or shank: the shank of a key, the shaft of a column.^[2][8]
5. The leg of a boot or shoe, above the foot.^[8][2]
6. (slang, dated) A cigarette.^[2][1]

Word family

• coton-tige
• tigelle

Related words

• tibia
• Latin tībia

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 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. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 13/1, 323b
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
5. ^ a b c Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
6. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
7. ^ a b Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
8. ^ a b c d e f Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
9. ^ Quemada, Bernard, ed. (1959–2006), Datations et documents lexicographiques (Base historique du vocabulaire français, BHVF), Paris: Klincksieck / CNRS / Champion; ATILF