tondre

Forms

tondre^[1] Old French tundre;^[2][3] Anglo-Norman also toundre and tunder.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old French tondre, inherited from Late Latin tondĕre, a Late Latin form with a short, unstressed /e/ that replaced classical tondēre (“to shear, shave, clip, to prune, to strip”).^{[4][5][6][7][8]} Littré explains the French and Provençal forms by this shift of stress.^[3] Rey suggests that the Latin verb may have been made on an o-grade form of an Indo-European root meaning “to cut”,^[5] which Wiktionary gives as Proto-Indo-European *tend-.^[1]

Cognate with Italian tondere, Occitan tondre and Spanish tundir.^[7][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the Couronnement de Louis (about 1135) it means to shave someone's head as a punishment; about 1165 Benoît de Sainte-Maure uses it reflexively for cutting one's hair in mourning.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The verb first meant “to shave”, the object being either the hair or the person.^[5] In the Middle Ages fools and condemned men were shorn, and the clergy wore the tonsure, so it also meant to give the tonsure (1155) and to make someone a monk (about 1165), a sense now lost but kept in tonsure.^[4][5] It was used of shearing sheep about 1170, and its figurative sense “to fleece, exploit” goes back to about 1160.^[4][5]

With the idea of making level it came to mean to crop cloth (1174–1187) and to cut a meadow close (about 1180); later it meant to graze (about 1600), of an animal, and to prune trees (1636).^[4][5] The proverbial se laisser tondre la laine sur le dos, to put up patiently with exactions, is recorded from 1611, and tondre sur un œuf was used of a miser.^[5][3][4] Napoleon's soldiers called him le Tondu (1828–1829), le petit tondu in Balzac (1833).^[4]

Timeline

• c. 1135 – The Couronnement de Louis uses it for shaving a head as a punishment.^[4]
• 1155 – Wace uses it for the clerical tonsure.^[4]
• c. 1160 – Benoît de Sainte-Maure uses it figuratively, “to exploit”.^[4][5]
• c. 1170 – The Livre des Rois has it of shearing sheep.^[4][9]
• 1174–1187 – Chrétien de Troyes uses tondre dras for cropping cloth.^[4]
• c. 1180 – Marie de France speaks of a mown meadow, pré tundu.^[4]
• 1526 – Marot has trouver a tondre sur ung œuf.^[4]
• 1611 – Se laisser tondre la laine sur le dos is recorded.^[5][9]
• 1636 – Monet records the sense “to prune trees”.^[4][5]
• 1842 – Avoir d'autres chiens à tondre appears in Eugène Sue.^[9]

Meanings

Verb

1. To shear or clip close (wool, hair, fur): tondre la laine d'une brebis.^[10][4]
2. To shear (an animal) of its coat: tondre un chien;^[10][1] se faire tondre, to have one's hair cropped very short.^[10][1]
3. To mow (grass, a lawn) or trim (a hedge).^[1][4]
4. (figurative, familiar) To fleece someone, to strip them of their money.^[10][1]
5. Se laisser tondre la laine sur le dos: to let oneself be exploited without protest.^[10][5]

Word family

• tondeur
• tonte
• tondeuse

Related words

• tonsure
• Latin tondeō

Usage notes

Littré records a separate feminine noun tondre “tinder” in Old French, of Germanic origin, which he compares with English tinder and German Zunder.^[3][2] The derivatives fall into two groups: those on the stem tont- of the old past participle, such as tonte, and those on tond-, such as tondeur and tondeuse.^[5][7]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
3. ^ a b c d e f Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q 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
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
6. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
7. ^ a b c Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
8. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 13/2, 24b
9. ^ a b c Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
10. ^ a b c d e Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert