vestige

Forms

vestige m (plural vestiges)^[1] Middle French plural vestigies (1441).^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin vestīgium (“sole of the foot, footprint, trace”), first recorded in 1377 in Nicole Oresme.^[2][4][5][6] The Latin noun properly meant the print of a foot, hence any trace or mark.^[2][5] Rey derives it from the Latin verb vestīgō (“to track, trace”), which has no known etymology,^[4] and Etymonline also calls the Latin word of unknown origin.^[7]

Cognate with Occitan vestigi, Spanish vestigio and Italian vestigio.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its first record, in Nicole Oresme's Livre du Ciel et du Monde (1377), is abstract and in the singular: a mark or remainder left by something, such as an idea or an action.^[2][4][6]

Semantic evolution

With this abstract value the plural soon became the usual form (1462).^[4] The Latin sense “footprints” was taken over in the 15th century, first as vestigies (1441) and then as vestiges (about 1488), but it has since gone out of use except in literary style.^[2][4][3]

From the end of the 15th century the word named what remains of a destroyed or vanished thing, a ruin (1488 in La Mer des Histoires, 1491 by other accounts),^[2][4][9] and later the remains of a group or a society.^[4][9] Montaigne wrote that the Italians still kept some vestiges of the learned debates of the ancients.^[8] From the middle of the 19th century de beaux vestiges has been said jokingly of the remains of someone's beauty.^[4]

English borrowed vestige from French about 1600, for a trace of a building that no longer exists.^[7]

Timeline

• 1377 – Nicole Oresme uses vestige for a mark or remainder of something.^[2][4]
• 1441 – The plural vestigies means “footprints”.^[2]
• 1462 – The plural becomes the usual form in the abstract sense.^[4]
• c. 1488 – Vestiges “footprints” appears in the Sottie des Coppieurs et Lardeurs.^[2]
• 1488 – La Mer des Histoires uses the plural for the ruins of a destroyed thing.^[2]
• c. 1600 – English borrows the word as vestige.^[7]
• mid-19th century – De beaux vestiges is used jokingly of faded beauty.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. (mostly plural) What remains of something destroyed or vanished: ruins, remains, débris.^[9][3]
2. (by extension) What is left of a group of people or a society.^[9]
3. What remains of something abstract, such as an idea, a feeling or a character; a trace.^[9][2]
4. (dated, literary) A footprint left on the ground by a person or animal.^[2][3][8]
5. (biology) A reduced or atrophied organ or structure that keeps the trace of an earlier function.^[10]

Related words

• investigation
• Latin vestigium
• English vestige

Usage notes

De beaux vestiges is a jocular phrase for what is left of someone's beauty.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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 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 Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
5. ^ a b Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
6. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
7. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
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
10. ^ Wiktionnaire (French Wiktionary), fr.wiktionary.org