tomber

Pronunciation

• IPA: /tɔ̃.be/^[1]

Forms

tomber^[1] Old French tumber and tomber, used side by side until the 16th century, when Rabelais and Ronsard still wrote tumber.^[2][3]

Etymology

It was formed in Old French on an expressive stem from French tumb- (“fall, tumble”) imitating the sound of a fall or a sudden jump; it was probably a word of the jongleurs and acrobats, which travelled from one country to another.^[2][4][5][6] Parallel forms are Romanian tumbă (“somersault”), Italian tombolare (“to tumble”), Spanish tumbar and Portuguese tombar.^[2][4]

It was influenced by Old French tumer (“to dance, leap, tumble”), borrowed from Frankish *tūmōn, compare Old High German tūmōn (“to turn round”) and German taumeln (“to stagger”).^[2][4][3] Wiktionary thinks the Frankish verb the more likely source.^[1] “Tumer” had disappeared from standard French before the 16th century but survives in Walloon and Lorrain.^[4][2]

Littré, following Pott, instead derived “tumber” from “tumer” with an intrusive “b”.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

About 1165 Benoît de Sainte-Maure's Roman de Troie uses it of dancing and tumbling: e bale e tresche e tombe e saut “and dances and capers and tumbles and leaps”.^[8]

Semantic evolution

In 1170–83 Wace uses tumber for “to fall”.^[8] Until the 16th century it meant both “to tumble” and, transitively, “to make fall”; the transitive use was blamed as a Gascon usage in the 17th century and revived in the 19th through wrestlers' slang.^[2][4]

Only at the end of the 15th century did it take the sense “to fall from a height by one's weight”, and so replaced choir.^[2][4] Rain tombe from about 1495, and figurative uses followed: tomber en ruine (1531), laisser tomber (1534, “to drop someone”, 1679), tomber malade, tomber des nues (1625), tomber de fatigue (1753), tomber sur “to attack” (1604).^[2][8][4] The noun le tomber (au tomber du jour) is literary and dates from 1820–29.^[9][3]

Timeline

• c. 1165 – Tombe “tumbles” in the Roman de Troie.^[8]
• 1170–1183 – Tumber “to fall” in Wace's Roman de Rou.^[8]
• c. 1213 – Transitive “to make fall”.^[2]
• Late 15th century – The sense “to fall from a height”.^[2][4]
• c. 1495 – Of rain.^[2]
• 1534 – Laisser tomber.^[2]
• 1625 – Tomber des nues.^[8]
• 1845 – Tombeur, in wrestling.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To fall, fall down: tomber par terre, tomber de cheval.^[10][11]
2. To come down: la pluie tombe, la nuit tombe.^[2][1]
3. To hang down: ses cheveux tombent sur ses épaules.^[2]
4. To fall in battle; to be overthrown.^[8][10]
5. To become, fall into a state: tomber malade, tomber amoureux.^[1][4]
6. Tomber sur: to come across, run into; to attack.^[1][8]
7. Laisser tomber: to drop; to abandon.^[2][1]
8. (transitive, familiar) To throw (an opponent); to seduce.^[4][12]

Noun

1. (literary) Au tomber du jour: at nightfall.^[9][5]

Word family

• tombeur
• tombée
• retomber

Related words

• choir
• tombola
• English tumble

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o 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 g h i j k Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
5. ^ a b Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
6. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 13/2, 403a
7. ^ Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
8. ^ 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
9. ^ a b Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
10. ^ a b Dictionnaire Le Robert en ligne, dictionnaire.lerobert.com (accessed 2024)
11. ^ Dictionnaire de français Larousse, larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais (accessed 2024)
12. ^ Quemada, Bernard, ed. (1959–2006), Datations et documents lexicographiques (Base historique du vocabulaire français, BHVF), Paris: Klincksieck / CNRS / Champion; ATILF