Etymologically
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usine

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Pronunciation

  • IPA: /y.zin/[1]

Forms

usine f (plural usines)[1] Old French (Picard) oechine, oechevine, ouchine, euchine; wisine (1274), uisine (1341), usine (1355).[2][3][1]

Etymology

It is a word of the dialects of the north and east of France, inherited from Old French wisine, inherited from Latin officīna (“workshop, factory”), with a sound development of its own in those regions.[2][3][4][5] Medieval Latin usina is recorded in 922 in Franche-Comté for a mill.[2] The change to the modern form may be due to the verb user (Rey), or the form with ⟨w⟩ may itself have been altered from the Picard forms after cuisine (Bloch and Wartburg, the GLLF).[3][4][6] Littré's derivation from Latin ūsus (“use”) has been given up.[7]

The Latin word is a contraction of opificīna, from opifex (“craftsman”), from opus (“work”) and faciō (“to make”).[3] The learned doublet is officine.[1][2] The Latin word has few descendants outside French; Italian fucina (“forge”) is one.[4][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the Customs of the burghers of Cambrai (13th century) occhevine is a building by a stream where water power drives machinery: a fuller's, brewer's or tanner's workshop, a mill or a press.[2]

Semantic evolution

Until the 18th century the word was regional and meant an establishment using water-driven machinery, especially a forge.[2][3] It spread in the 18th century through official documents, Bloch and Wartburg's first record being a royal decree of 1732 about Charleville.[4][2] From the 1830s and 1840s, with industrialization, it became the ordinary word for a factory of any kind, whatever drove its machines, and replaced fabrique and manufacture: les bâtiments des usines (Say, 1832), usine à gaz (1842).[2][3]

Hugo speaks of a librairie that would be l'usine intellectuelle du monde entier (1852), and usine à… came to mean any place of mass production.[2][3] Usine à gaz has meant, since the 1960s, a needlessly complicated scheme.[3]

Timeline

  • 13th century – Occhevine in the Customs of Cambrai.[2]
  • 1274 – Wisine in a charter of the counts of Lille.[2]
  • 1355 – The form usine.[3][8]
  • 1732 – A decree of the King's council uses it of an ironworks.[4][8]
  • 1798 – The Académie records the word.[2]
  • 1832 – A factory in the modern sense, in Jean-Baptiste Say.[2]
  • 1842 – Usine à gaz.[2][3]
  • 1960s – Usine à gaz “overcomplicated system”.[3]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A factory, an industrial establishment where machines make goods, process raw materials or produce energy: travailler en usine.[9][10]
  2. (dated) An ironworks or mill driven by water power.[8][6]
  3. (familiar) A place of intense, mass-production activity.[11][6]
  4. Usine à gaz: a gasworks, (figurative) a needlessly complicated scheme.[3][2]

Word family

  • usinier
  • usiner

References

  1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ 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
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
  4. ^ a b c d e Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
  5. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 7, 334b
  6. ^ a b c Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
  7. ^ Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
  8. ^ a b c Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
  9. ^ 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)