totalité

Forms

totalité f (plural totalités)^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from French total + -ité, as a learned derivative;^[2][3][1] in Raoul de Presles, its first user, the TLFi takes it rather as borrowed from Medieval Latin totalitas, a derivative of totalis, the source of total.^[2][4]

Cognate with Occitan totalitat, Spanish totalidad and Italian totalità.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in Raoul de Presles's translation of Augustine's City of God, for the union of all the parts of a whole.^[2][3] Bloch and Wartburg, the GLLF and the Grand Robert date it 1375;^[4][3][6] the TLFi gives 1495, the date of the edition it quotes.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The sense “all the parts of a whole” has outlived an older sense, “the quality of being total”, which survives only in the phrase en totalité “without exception” (1578, en toutallité).^[7][2] In the 20th century psychology took up the loi de totalité (1947), and Gestalt theory a principe de totalité.^[2][3][8] The adjective totalitaire was formed on its stem in 1927.^[7]

Timeline

• 1375 – Raoul de Presles uses it in his City of God.^[4][3]
• 1578 – En toutallité “entirely” is recorded.^[2][7]
• 1796 – The modern spelling en totalité appears.^[2]
• 1947 – Lalande records the loi de totalité of psychology.^[2][3]

Meanings

Noun

1. The whole, all the parts or members of a set: la totalité des habitants.^[8][2]
2. En totalité, dans sa totalité: entirely, without exception.^[8][2]
3. (philosophy) In Kant, the category that unites unity and plurality.^[8]
4. (psychology) Principe de totalité, loi de totalité: the principle that an organised whole acts as a whole, with properties its parts lack.^[8][3]

Related words

• total
• totalitaire
• tout

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 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 g Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
4. ^ a b c Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
5. ^ Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
6. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
7. ^ a b c Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
8. ^ a b c d e Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert