variabilité

Forms

variabilité f (plural variabilités)^[1] Middle French variableté, the older form, beside variabilité from about 1400.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is from French variable + -ité.^[2][5][6][7] The older form variableté had the popular shape of the suffix, and the learned spelling with -ité is found from about 1400.^[2][8] A Latin–French glossary of the second half of the 14th century renders Latin variabilitas with the plural of the older form.^[2] The Wiktionary instead takes the word from Medieval Latin variābilitās.^[1] variable is from Latin variābilis, from variō (“to vary”).^[6][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its first record is variableté in Guillaume de Machaut (1349), in the sense “fickleness”, of a love kept loyal “without any changeableness”.^[2][9]

Semantic evolution

Until the late 17th century it meant inconstancy, as in Chastellain's variabilités de fortune (1461) and Lanfranc's description of a change in the colour of the skin.^[2][5][4] From the early 18th century it took the general sense “disposition to vary, changeable character”.^[2] In the 19th century it was specialised in grammar (1814), for words that change their endings, in natural history (1819), for species that show varieties, and in mathematics (1845), for a variable quantity.^[2][10] The biological sense became central with Darwin's theory of variation.^[2]

Timeline

• 1349 – Variableté appears in Guillaume de Machaut.^[2]
• c. 1400 – The spelling variabilités is found in a Catholicon glossary.^[2][5]
• 1461 – Georges Chastellain writes of variabilités de fortune.^[5]
• 1704 – Bossuet uses it for the disposition to vary.^[2]
• 1814 – First used in grammar.^[2]
• 1819 – Lacépède uses it of the colours of fish species.^[2]
• 1845 – Bescherelle records the mathematical sense.^[2][5]
• 1872 – Littré lists the grammatical sense.^[2][8]

Meanings

Noun

1. variability: the character of what is liable to vary: la variabilité du temps, la variabilité des goûts.^[11][12][5]
2. (biology) The capacity of living things to vary; also a measure of how widely a trait varies: variabilité génétique.^[11][12][2]
3. (mathematics) The quality of a variable quantity.^[5][4]
4. (grammar) The property of certain words of changing their endings.^[4][8]

Related words

• variable
• varier
• variation
• variété
• invariabilité
• Latin variābilis

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 l m n o p q Steinfeld, Nadine; Buchi, Éva, eds. (2005–), TLF-Étym: révision des notices étymologiques du Trésor de la langue française informatisé, Nancy: ATILF
3. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
4. ^ a b c d Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
5. ^ a b c d e f g 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
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. 14, 176a
8. ^ a b c Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
9. ^ Dictionnaire du Moyen Français, version 2015 (DMF 2015), ATILF – CNRS & Université de Lorraine, atilf.fr/dmf
10. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
11. ^ a b Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
12. ^ a b Académie française (1992–2024), Dictionnaire de l'Académie française, 9th ed., Paris: Académie française / Fayard / Imprimerie nationale