veuf

Forms

veuf m (plural veufs, feminine veuve)^[1] Old French vedve (feminine noun), veve (adjective), vesve;^[2][3] Middle French vefve, veufve and the masculine vef (1535).^[2][3] Richelet noted in 1680 that one must say and write veuf, not vef.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old French vedve, inherited from Latin vidua (“widow”), the feminine noun of the adjective viduus (“widowed, deprived of”).^[2][4][5][6] Rey thinks the Latin masculine was itself made on the feminine, which alone is found in early texts.^[5]

In Old and Middle French the word was used mostly in the feminine, because losing a husband gave a medieval woman a civil status of her own, while a man who lost his wife had none; a widower was called veuve with homme placed before it.^[7][2][5] In the 16th century, when the clash between a masculine noun and a feminine form was felt, a masculine was made on the model of neuf² beside neuve.^[2] The Grand Robert dates the noun to 1596, from the masculine use of the feminine form recorded in 1226;^[6][7] Bloch and Wartburg date the masculine form only from the 17th century.^[6][7]

Cognate with Italian vedovo and Spanish viudo,^[7] and with Walloon vef and Picard vaive.^[8] Rey notes that related words for the widow are found in much of Indo-European, but not in Greek or Armenian, and that no common word for the widower existed.^[5][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLFi's first record is the feminine adjective veve in veve feme “widowed woman”, in the Couronnement de Louis (about 1135).^[2] The feminine noun is recorded about 1150 in the Vie de saint Alexis (the DHLF and GLLF date the text to about 1050), as vedve, a woman whose husband has died.^[2][5][3] Littré cites an 11th-century law of William the Conqueror's time: Primerament rendrat l'um à la vedve dix solz (“First, ten shillings shall be paid to the widow”).^[8]

Semantic evolution

From the early 13th century the adjective also had the Latin figurative sense “deprived of”: Guiot de Provins writes of a land de s'onor vauve “bereft of its honour” (about 1206), and Du Bellay uses the masculine veuf de in 1549.^[2][5] Église veuve (1762) was a collegiate church that had once been a cathedral; the phrase has gone out of use.^[5][8] By extension the adjective applies to someone temporarily separated from a spouse (1795).^[5]

The noun veuve took several figurative senses.^[5] Le denier de la veuve “the widow's mite”, a modest gift from a poor person, is in Mme de Sévigné in 1689.^[2] In slang, épouser la veuve meant to be hanged, and later guillotined, and la veuve named the gallows (1628) and then the guillotine (1835), the word standing for death.^[2][5] Because of their dark colours, several animals and plants are called veuve: a small black and white bird (1762 or 1764), a butterfly (1842) and a scabious (1780).^[5][2] Veuve noire, the venomous spider and a murderous widow, is a calque of American English black widow.^[5]

Timeline

• c. 1135 – The adjective veve is used of a woman in the Couronnement de Louis.^[2]
• c. 1150 – The feminine noun vedve appears in the Vie de saint Alexis.^[2]
• c. 1200 – Veves is used of a man.^[2]
• c. 1206 – Guiot de Provins uses vauve for “deprived of”.^[2]
• 1306 – Joinville writes veuve femme.^[2]
• 1535 – The masculine vef is recorded.^[2]
• 1549 – Du Bellay writes veuf de “deprived of”.^[2][5]
• 1552 – Ronsard uses the form veuf.^[2]
• 1596 – Hulsius records veuve and the masculine noun veuf.^[2][3]
• 1628 – Épouser la veuve “to be hanged” appears in thieves' jargon.^[2]
• 1689 – Mme de Sévigné uses le denier de la veuve.^[2]
• 1835 – La veuve is recorded for the guillotine.^[2][5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. widowed: whose husband or wife has died and who has not remarried.^[9][2][8]
2. (familiar) Temporarily without one's spouse: Toute la semaine, je suis veuf.^[9][5]
3. (literary) Veuf de: deprived of, lacking.^[9][2]
4. Missing its pair, odd.^[1]

Noun

1. A widower; the feminine veuve is a widow.^[9][1][2]
2. La veuve (slang, dated): the guillotine; earlier the gallows.^[2][5]
3. Veuve: a small African bird with dark plumage, the whydah.^[2][5]

Word family

• veuvage

Related words

• veuve
• viduité
• Latin vidua

Usage notes

In the plural the final ⟨s⟩ is not sounded before a vowel;^[8] Vaugelas noted and condemned the provincial pronunciation vève.^[8] La Veuve joyeuse is the French title of Franz Lehár's operetta.^[9]

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 p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 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. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 14, 432b
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
6. ^ a b c Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
7. ^ a b c d e Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
8. ^ a b c d e f 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