vautour

Forms

vautour m (plural vautours)^[1] Old French voltur (late 11th century), vostor (early 13th century), voutour (13th century) and voltour (about 1265).^[2][3] Middle French vouteur (1352–1356) and voultour (1546), with the rarer voutre (about 1330).^[3][2] Forms from Latin vulturius, such as voutoir (13th century) and voultoir (about 1375), are also found.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old French voutour, inherited from Vulgar Latin *vultōrem, an alteration of Latin vultur (“vulture”) by a change of declension.^[2][5][1][6] The rare medieval voutre and Béarnais boutre continue the unaltered Latin word, while voutoir goes back to its derivative vulturius.^[2][4][3] The modern form with ⟨vau-⟩ instead of ⟨vou-⟩, first recorded in Ronsard (1553), is probably a dialect form of the south-west.^[2][4][3] Rey treats the word instead as a borrowing from Classical Latin.^[3] The Latin word is thought to be related to vellō (“to pluck, to tear out”), though an Etruscan name meaning literally the bird of the god Vel has also been suggested.^[3][7]

Cognate with Old Italian avvoltore, Catalan voltor, Occitan voltor and Spanish buitre.^[2][1][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first recorded as voltur in the French glosses of Rashi at the end of the 11th century, naming the large bird of prey with a bare head and neck that feeds on carrion.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

Brunetto Latini's Trésor describes the voltour as a large bird like an eagle, which always follows carrion.^[7] From the 16th century the bird of the Prometheus myth, gnawing at the liver of its victim, made the word an image of whatever torments and destroys, as in Desportes (before 1606).^[2][7][5] The figurative sense of a hard, greedy person, already found in Latin, appears in 1577, perhaps by a new borrowing;^[3][8] the TLFi's first record of it is Racan (1660).^[2][9]

In zoology the name applies above all to the vultures of the Old World, those of America being called condor.^[3] In 1967 vautour came to mean a supporter of war in an international conflict.^[2][3] Rey takes it as a calque of English vulture, while the TLFi sees it as a rendering of English hawk (French faucon).^[3][2]

Timeline

• late 11th century – Voltur appears in Rashi's glosses.^[2]
• 13th century – The form voutour is found in the Isopet de Lyon.^[2]
• 1553 – The form vautour appears in Ronsard.^[2][3]
• 1577 – First figurative use for a rapacious person.^[8][3]
• before 1606 – Desportes uses the image of the vulture of Prometheus.^[2]
• 1660 – Racan applies it to rapacious people.^[2]
• 1967 – L'Express uses it for a supporter of war.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A vulture, a large bird of prey with a hooked beak and a bare head and neck, feeding on carrion.^[8][2][1]
2. (figurative, derogatory) A hard, rapacious person who preys on others.^[8][2][1]
3. (politics) A supporter of force or war in an international dispute, a hawk.^[2][3]

Word family

• vautour moine

Related words

• Latin vultur

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 j k l m n o p q r s t 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 n o Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
4. ^ a b c Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
5. ^ a b Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
6. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 14, 647b
7. ^ a b c d Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
8. ^ a b c d Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
9. ^ Quemada, Bernard, ed. (1959–2006), Datations et documents lexicographiques (Base historique du vocabulaire français, BHVF), Paris: Klincksieck / CNRS / Champion; ATILF