unité

Pronunciation

• IPA: /y.ni.te/^[1]

Forms

unité f (plural unités)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin ūnitās (“oneness, unity; sameness”), derived from ūnus (“one”), the source of un.^[2][3][4][5] Cognate with Old Occitan unitat, Spanish unidad and Italian unità.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the Athanasian Creed of the Oxford Psalter (first half of the 12th century) it is the oneness of God: Deu en Trinité, e la Trinité en unité.^[7][8]

Semantic evolution

The word first named the state of what forms one organic whole; the learned sense “quality of what has no parts” appears in Brunetto Latini about 1265.^[2][7] About 1370 Oresme uses it for the element of arithmetic from which numbers are formed, whence the number one, and about 1375 it meant harmony or agreement between people.^[2][7]

In the 17th century Guez de Balzac (1638) applied it to the coherence of the parts of a literary work, and Corneille (1660) wrote of the unities of action, place and day, the rule of classical drama derived from Aristotle by Scaliger;^[2][7][8] unité de temps is in Furetière in 1690.^[2][7][8] In mathematics and measurement unité became a quantity taken as a standard of comparison; from 1680 it also named the units below ten in a number.^[7][6] Later senses include a military formation and an element of a structured whole.^[9][8]

Timeline

• c. 1120 – In the Oxford Psalter, of the oneness of God.^[7][8]
• c. 1265 – Brunetto Latini: what has no parts.^[7]
• c. 1370 – Oresme: the arithmetical unit.^[7][2]
• 1638 – Guez de Balzac: coherence of a literary work.^[7]
• 1660 – Corneille's three unities of drama.^[7][2]
• 1680 – The units of a number, as against tens.^[7]
• 1933 – Unité de radium.^[7][8]

Meanings

Noun

1. The character of what is one and single; oneness: l'unité divine.^[9][1]
2. The character of what forms a coherent whole; unity, harmony: unité d'une œuvre, unité de vues.^[9][8]
3. (literature) Unité d'action, de lieu, de temps: the three unities of classical drama.^[9][8]
4. (mathematics) The number one; in the plural, the ones of a number.^[1][7]
5. A quantity taken as a standard of measurement: unité de longueur, système d'unités.^[6][8]
6. A single element of a whole or of a series; an item: prix à l'unité.^[9][10]
7. (military) A formation of troops, ships or aircraft.^[9][11]
8. (computing) Unité centrale: the central processing unit.^[1]

Word family

• unitaire

Related words

• unir
• un
• Latin ūnitās
• English unity

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
3. ^ Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
4. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 14, 48b
5. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
6. ^ a b c Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n 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
8. ^ 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
9. ^ a b c d e f Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
10. ^ Dictionnaire Le Robert en ligne, dictionnaire.lerobert.com (accessed 2024)
11. ^ Dictionnaire de français Larousse, larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais (accessed 2024)