tiroir

Forms

tiroir m (plural tiroirs)^[1] Older spellings include tireour (13th century), tirouer (1340, 1530), tiroer (1380), tyroire (1363) and tyroir (1583); tiroir is the spelling of Richelet in 1680.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is formed from French tirer + -oir, the drawer being the thing one pulls out.^[2][1][5][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its first sense, in a late 13th-century French translation of the Emperor Frederick II's treatise on falconry, was a limb of an animal given to a falcon to calm it.^[2][4][3]

Semantic evolution

In the 14th and 15th centuries the word named several things that are pulled or that pull: a frame for stretching cloth (1340), a cooper's tool for drawing hoops tight (1363), the strap or chain fastening the clasps of a book (1380), the handle pulled to close a door (1400–1402), and the room where torture by stretching was carried out (1450).^[2][4] It also named a shooting range (1636).^[4]

The modern sense, a sliding box fitted into a piece of furniture, is recorded from 1530 in Palsgrave, spelled tirouer.^[2][4][3] From it came figurative uses: pièce à tiroirs (1752) is a play made of loosely linked scenes or stories set one inside another.^[2][4] Technical language applied it to a cylinder of the cloth-curling machine (1723), to a gun whose breech slides across the barrel (1812), and since 1854 to the slide valve that distributes steam in a steam engine.^[2][4] Fond de tiroir, the forgotten things at the back of a drawer and so anything old and worthless, is recorded in 1964.^[3]

Timeline

• late 13th century – Tireour names a limb given to a falcon.^[2]
• 1340 – Tirouer names a frame for stretching cloth.^[2][4]
• 1363 – Tyroire is a cooper's tool for drawing hoops.^[2]
• 1380 – The inventory of Charles V uses tiroer for the strap of a book's clasp.^[2]
• 1530 – Palsgrave records tirouer “drawer”.^[2][3]
• 1680 – Richelet spells it tiroir.^[3]
• 1752 – The Dictionnaire de Trévoux records pièce à tiroir.^[2][7]
• 1854 – First used of the slide valve of a steam engine.^[2][4]
• 1889 – The compound tiroir-caisse “cash drawer” appears.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A drawer, a sliding box without a lid fitted into a piece of furniture: elle range ses lettres dans le tiroir du bureau.^[8][9][10]
2. Fond de tiroir: something left forgotten at the back of a drawer;^[8][10] (figurative) something old and of little value.^[8][10]
3. (theatre, literature) Pièce à tiroirs, roman à tiroirs: a work made of episodes or stories loosely set one within another.^[2][6]
4. (mechanics) A slide valve, the part that distributes steam or another fluid in an engine.^[9][2]
5. (railways) A dead-end track used for shunting, also voie de tiroir.^[9]

Word family

• tiroir-caisse

Related words

• tirer

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 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 Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
5. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
6. ^ a b Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
7. ^ Quemada, Bernard, ed. (1959–2006), Datations et documents lexicographiques (Base historique du vocabulaire français, BHVF), Paris: Klincksieck / CNRS / Champion; ATILF
8. ^ a b c Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
9. ^ a b c Dictionnaire de français Larousse, larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais (accessed 2024)
10. ^ a b c Dictionnaire Le Robert en ligne, dictionnaire.lerobert.com (accessed 2024)