vit

Forms

vit m (plural vits)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old French vit, inherited from Latin vectis (“lever, bar”), also the bar of a press or of a door.^[2][3][4][5] Rey compares Old Norse vǫg and Ancient Greek ὀχλίζω (okhlízō, “to lift with a lever”), and connects the Latin word, like vexō, with an Indo-European root Proto-Indo-European *wegh- that Meillet keeps apart from the root of vehō (“to carry”).^[3]

Cognate with Old Occitan vech, vieg and Italian vette (“lever”), and with Friulian vet, which has the French sense.^[5][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

From its first record, in Jehan Bodel's fabliau Barat et Haimet (about 1195), it means the penis, by a common metaphor.^[2][3][5]

Semantic evolution

The sense has not changed.^[5] It was used of animals from 1611.^[3] The word has gone out of use, replaced by many synonyms, except in wordplay such as spoonerisms.^[3]

Its diminutive vitelot (1655, Oudin) named a small cylinder of dough cooked in milk,^[3] and vitelotte (1812) a long purple variety of potato, which has come back into favour among the “forgotten vegetables”.^[3][5] The compound vit-de-mulet was a hook arquebus in Brantôme and is now a sailors' term for a jointed fitting that joins the boom to the mast.^[3]

Timeline

• c. 1195 – Vit appears in Jehan Bodel's Barat et Haimet.^[2]
• 1611 – Used of animals.^[3]
• 1655 – Oudin records the diminutive vitelot.^[3]
• 1812 – Vitelotte is the name of a potato.^[3][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. (dated, literary) The penis.^[7][8][9][1]

Word family

• vitelotte

Related words

• vexer
• Latin vectis

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c 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 Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
4. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 14, 211a
5. ^ a b c d e f Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 9173
7. ^ Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
8. ^ Dictionnaire de français Larousse, larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais (accessed 2024)
9. ^ Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse