Etymologically
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veille

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Pronunciation

Forms

veille f (plural veilles)[1] Old French veille (1145), voille (about 1170), velle (1373).[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin vigilia (“wakefulness; night watch”),[2][4][5][6] the Roman night being divided into four such watches.[4] The TLFi derives it from vigil (“awake, watchful; watchman”),[2][3] Rey from vigeō (“to be lively, vigorous”), which he compares with Germanic words such as Frankish *wahtōn (“to watch”), the source of guetter, and English wake.[4] The sense “day before” is peculiar to Gallo-Romance and comes from the Church's use of the word in Medieval Latin.[7][2] Littré starts from a contracted form ⟨viglia⟩.[8]

Cognate with Old Occitan velha, Spanish vela (remade on the verb), Portuguese vigia and Old Italian vegghia; Italian veglia is a borrowing.[7][8] The learned vigile belongs to the same family.[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Wace's Conception Notre-Dame (1145) uses it for staying awake at night in prayer: fist ses oreisons E veilles e aflictions.[2][4]

Semantic evolution

Soon it was also an evening spent together (about 1240), a sense later taken over by veillée.[4] Chrétien de Troyes has la voille de Natevité, the day before Christmas (about 1170), and Furetière (1690) the night of prayer before a feast.[2] Outside religion it came to mean the day before any event in the 16th century (la veille des nopces, 1537), whence à la veille de “on the eve of” (1599).[2][4]

From the first sense came “watching, keeping guard” (Froissart, 1373) and the night watch (1596), still found in homme de veille and radar de veille.[2][4][9] In the plural the veilles were long nights of study (1553); Furetière writes that scholars nous font voir du fruit de leurs veilles.[2][4] Monet (1636) contrasts veille with sleep, and veille des armes, the vigil before knighting, is recorded in 1732.[2][4] In business it has meant the gathering and analysis of strategic information since the second half of the 20th century.[4][9]

Timeline

  • 1145 – A night spent in prayer, in Wace.[2]
  • c. 1170 – La voille de Natevité.[2]
  • c. 1240 – An evening gathering.[4]
  • 1373 – Watching, in Froissart.[2]
  • 1537 – The day before any event.[2]
  • 1553 – Nights of study.[2]
  • 1596 – The night watch.[2]
  • 1599 – À la veille de.[2]
  • 1732 – Veille des armes.[2]
  • 2nd half of the 20th century – Veille technologique.[4]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The day before, the eve (of a feast or of any event); à la veille de, on the eve of, just before, ce n'est pas demain la veille, that won't happen any time soon.[1][2][8]
  2. Wakefulness, the state of being awake, as opposed to sleep.[2][1]
  3. A time of staying awake at night, especially for work: de longues veilles.[9][2]
  4. A watch, night guard: homme de veille, radar de veille.[9][1]
  5. (computing) Standby, écran de veille, a screensaver.[1]
  6. (business) Monitoring of information: veille technologique.[9]

Word family

  • avant-veille

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 u 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 Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
  4. ^ 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
  5. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
  6. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 14, 438b
  7. ^ a b Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
  8. ^ a b c Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
  9. ^ a b c d e Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert