truie

Forms

truie f (plural truies)^[1] Old French troie;^[2][3] Anglo-Norman also treie, truye and trouie.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin troia (“sow”), recorded in the 8th-century Kassel Glosses.^[4][5][6][7] The further origin is obscure.^[4]

Bloch and Wartburg, the DHLF and the GLLF trace it to porcus Troiānus (“Trojan pig”), a pig stuffed with small game, named in jest after the Trojan horse full of soldiers; the phrase would have become porcus de Troia and then been shortened to the single word.^[6][5][2] P. Guiraud thinks the phrase was applied to the sow because she is “stuffed” with piglets.^[5][8] The TLFi doubts this, since the phrase is found only once and was more likely an author's joke than the usual name of a dish.^[4][5] G. Breuer (1977) proposed instead a Gaulish form *trogja, from a root meaning “to pull”, which gave words for “fertile” in Old and Middle Irish.^[4][5][1] Wiktionary also mentions an imitation of a pig's grunt.^[1]

Cognate with Italian troia, Occitan truèja, Catalan truja and Walloon troye.^[1][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first sense, in Wace's Brut (1155), is a kind of catapult; the GLLF finds troie in this sense in the Roman de Thèbes about the same time.^[4][5][2] The female pig is first named about 1180 in Marie de France's Fables.^[4][5]

Semantic evolution

As a siege engine the truie could hurl heavy stones and shelter many soldiers, as Froissart describes.^[10][4] The animal sense soon prevailed.^[5]

By comparison or as an insult the word was applied to a woman, for her stoutness (truye, 1675), her dirtiness and, morally, a dissolute life, as cochon and porc are of men.^[5] Old phrases include tourner la truie au foin “to change the subject”.^[10]

A fish was called truie in 1558;^[4][5][2] truie de mer named the porpoise in 1611 and later the scorpion fish (1803).^[4][5][2]

Timeline

• 1155 – Wace's Brut uses it for a catapult.^[4][5]
• c. 1180 – Marie de France uses it for the female pig.^[4][5]
• 1558 – It names a fish.^[4][5]
• 1611 – Cotgrave records truye de mer.^[4][5]
• 1675 – Truye is used of a stout woman.^[5]
• 1803 – Truie de mer names the scorpion fish.^[5][2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A sow, the female of the pig, kept for breeding.^[11][4][12]
2. (derogatory) A fat, dirty or debauched woman.^[5][1]
3. Truie de mer: the scorpion fish.^[11][2]
4. (history) A medieval siege engine that threw stones.^[4][2]

Related words

• Late Latin troia

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
3. ^ a b Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o 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 m n o p q r Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
6. ^ a b Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
7. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 13/2, 314b
8. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ a b Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
11. ^ a b Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
12. ^ Dictionnaire Le Robert en ligne, dictionnaire.lerobert.com (accessed 2024)