French words first recorded in the 16th century

It is from French exact + -ment. exact is borrowed from Latin exāctus (“precise, accurate”), the past participle of exigō (“to drive out; to weigh, measure”).

It is borrowed from Italian attaccare (“to attach; to begin; to attack”), a military term, as in “attaccare battaglia” “to join battle” and “attaccare la scaramuccia”, which Rabelais rendered…

Its origin is obscure. The word is found around the same time in the Romance languages (Italian brezza, Spanish brisa, Portuguese brisa) and in the Germanic ones (English breeze, Dutch bries). Rey…

It is borrowed from Latin hybrida (“mongrel; of mixed blood”), earlier “ibrida”, said especially of the offspring of a wild boar and a sow and of children of parents of different countries or ranks…

It is borrowed from Italian parasole, recorded from the 14th century, literally “what keeps off the sun”, from para-, from parare (“to ward off”), and sole (“sun”). The first French forms came…

It is borrowed from Latin successus (“approach, advance; succession; success”), the action noun of succēdō (“to go up to; to follow; to turn out well”) (see succéder), from sub- and cēdō (“to go”)…

1. The hood is formed from cape with the diminutive suffix -ot, the noun “cape” being from Late Latin cappa (“hooded cloak”). The TLFi thinks a borrowing from Italian cappotto (“a kind of cloak”)…

It is borrowed from Latin exāctus (“precisely weighed; precise, accomplished”), the past participle, used as an adjective, of exigō (“to drive out; to complete; to weigh”) (see exiger), from ex-…

It is a term of the arts, borrowed from Italian modello (“a figure to be copied”) (recorded in Michelangelo), from Vulgar Latin *modellus, an alteration with a change of suffix of Latin modulus…

It is borrowed from Italian bizzarro (“irascible; extravagant”), which meant “angry” in the early 14th century and “extravagant” from the early 16th. The origin of the Italian word is uncertain. Rey…

It is a shortening, by a change of prefix, of desembarrasser (1535, in the customs of Ypres), borrowed from Spanish desembarazar (“to clear of what encumbers”) (1495, Nebrija), formed from embarazar…

It is borrowed from Latin acidus (“sour”), from aceō (“to be sour”), related to ācer (“sharp”), from an Indo-European root “*ak-” “point”, also found in acētum (“vinegar”) and acus (“needle”). The…

It is borrowed from Italian busto (“upper body”) (14th century), perhaps from Latin bustum (“funeral pyre; tomb”), which could have come to mean “bust” because funeral monuments were often adorned…

It is borrowed from Italian mancare (“to be lacking, fail”), a Renaissance borrowing, derived from the adjective manco (“lacking, defective”), from Latin mancus (“maimed, crippled; defective”)…

It is borrowed from Latin phrasis (“diction, style, expression”), itself borrowed from Ancient Greek φράσις (phrásis, “speech; expression, diction”), from φράζω (phrázō, “to point out, explain…

It is the phrase à plomb “perpendicularly”, literally “by the plumb line”, written as one word. Plomb “lead” comes from Latin plumbum, the metal of the weight at the end of the line.

It is borrowed from Latin fūsiō (“a pouring out, (Late Latin) melting of metals”), from fūsum, the supine of fundō (“to pour; to melt”), the source of fondre. It is a doublet of the inherited…

The origin is disputed. The most probable explanation is a phonetic distortion of Biblical Hebrew בָּרוּךְ הַבָּא (bārūkh habbā, “blessed is he who comes”), from the verse “blessed is he who comes…

It is borrowed from Latin classicus (“of the first class; first-rate”), the adjective of Latin classis (“class”) (see classe): the “classici” were the citizens of the first of the five classes into…

It is inherited from Middle French amelette (1480), altered, probably in the south, under the influence of words from Latin ōvum (“egg”). Amelette comes by metathesis from a form “alemette”, a…

It is the noun of an old verb debrisier (“to break to pieces”), “débriser” (from the “Cambridge Psalter”; still in use in the 17th century), an intensive of briser with “dé-”. “Briser” is Late Latin…

It is borrowed from Late Latin oblātus (“offered”), the past participle of Latin offerō (“to offer”) (see offrir), used as a noun in Church Latin for a child offered to a monastery. The feminine…

It is from French pays + -age. Pays goes back to Late Latin pāgēnsis (“inhabitant of a district”), from pāgus (“district, canton”). Compare Italian paesaggio, Catalan paisatge, Spanish paisaje…

It is formed from re- and the old verb emplacer (“to put in place”) (see emplacement), itself from place; the noun continues Latin platea (“broad street; square”), perhaps from Ancient Greek πλατεῖα…

In its modern senses it is the feminine past participle of surprendre used as a noun. The medieval “surprise” “extraordinary tax” is probably a separate formation, from sur- and prise, a financial…

It is borrowed from Latin cadāver (“dead body, corpse”), a word attested from the 3rd–2nd century BC. The ancients rightly connected it with cadō (“to fall; to perish”); the ending is obscure…

Used as an adjective, it is the present participle from French charmer (“to charm, bewitch”). Charmer continues Late Latin carminō (“to enchant”), a derivative of Latin carmen (“song; incantation”)…

It is borrowed from Italian Pantalone, the name of a buffoon of the commedia dell'arte who wore a garment all of one piece, with the hose falling straight to the feet. He was the stock figure of the…

It is borrowed from Italian serenata, recorded in the sense “evening concert” from the second half of the 15th century, earlier “clear weather, calm night” (14th century), derived from sereno…

It is from French urgent + -ence. The adjective is from Late Latin urgēns (“pressing”), the present participle of urgeō (“to press”). Littré instead derived the noun from Latin urgentia.

The origin is uncertain. It is usually explained as an adaptation, under the influence of cage, of Middle French gayoler (“to chatter like a caged bird”) (1525), derived from gaiole (“cage”), the…

It is borrowed from Italian all'erta (“on the height; on guard”), a soldiers' call to keep watch, from erta (“steep slope, height”), the noun use of erto (“steep”), past participle of ergere (“to…

It is inherited from Middle French salmiguondin (“stew”), a word of Rabelais, with the ending changed to “-is”. Rabelais had already used Salmigondin as the name of a castellany given to Panurge in…

It is borrowed from Late Latin sarcasmus, used by the grammarians as a term of rhetoric, from Ancient Greek σαρκασμός (sarkasmós, “bitter laughter, sneer”), derived from σαρκάζω (sarkázō, “to bare…

It is borrowed from Latin sceletus, from Ancient Greek σκελετός (skeletós, “dried up; a dried body, mummy”); Rey and Bloch and Wartburg take it straight from Greek. The Greek adjective comes from…

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek σύστημα (sústēma, “organised whole; constitution; philosophical system”), through Late Latin systēma (“assemblage”), in Late Latin chiefly a term of music; the…

It is formed from French partage + -er. It took over the sense “to divide, share” from the older verb partir, which kept only the sense “to leave”. The FEW files it with the other descendants of…

It is borrowed from Italian mascherata, northern form “mascarata” (16th century), a derivative of “maschera” “mask” (see masque).

According to the TLFi it is borrowed from Latin respectō (“to look back; to have in view, take into account”); Wiktionary also calls it a borrowing. The Grand Robert, the GLLF, the Petit Robert…

It is borrowed from Late Latin collīna (“hilly ground, hill”), probably through Italian collina, in use since the 14th century; the naturalist Pierre Belon, who first used it, had travelled in…

It is borrowed from Latin discus (“discus, quoit; plate”), from Ancient Greek δίσκος (dískos, “discus”), which Rey derives from δικεῖν (dikeîn, “to throw”). The same Latin word had given the…

It is from French Amérique + -ain. “Amérique” is the French form of New Latin America, a name the cosmographer Martin Waldseemüller coined in 1507 after the navigator “Amerigo Vespucci”, whom he…

It is borrowed from Latin fossilis (“dug up”), probably formed on fossum, the supine of fodiō (“to dig”), the source of fouir and of fosse.

It is borrowed from New Latin apogaeum, from Ancient Greek ἀπόγειον (apógeion), the neuter of ἀπόγειος (apógeios, “far from the earth”), which in Ptolemy's system named the greatest distance of a…

It is from French promener + -ade. The first form pourmenade was formed on pourmener, the older form of promener. That verb, Old French pourmener “to lead about” (about 1150), was formed from pour-…

It is borrowed from Old Italian risco (modern Italian rischio), which corresponds to Medieval Latin resicum, risicus, recorded at Marseille, Bologna and elsewhere from the 12th and 13th centuries…

It is borrowed from Italian capriccio, which first meant “a shiver of fear or horror” (13th century) and then, in the 16th century, “a sudden odd desire, a whimsical idea”. The Italian word comes…

It is borrowed from Late Latin diatriba (“discussion; school”), from Ancient Greek διατριβή (diatribḗ), literally “a wearing away”, whence “pastime” and “study, philosophical discourse”, from…

It is borrowed from Italian valigia (“small trunk”), recorded in Italian from the 14th century (Boccaccio), from Medieval Latin valisia (13th–14th centuries, in documents from Italy). The further…

It is borrowed from Italian appartamento, which the Petit Robert and Rey take from Spanish apartamiento (“separate place, dwelling”), a derivative of “apartarse” “to move apart, separate” (compare…

It is borrowed from Italian brillare (“to move about, flutter; to sparkle”) (1559), which meant “to move about, beat the wings quickly” in the second half of the 15th century and “to give off…

It is borrowed from Latin nōmenclātūra (“a calling by name; list of names”), from nōmenclātor, the slave who told his master the names of the people he met, formed from nōmen (“name”) and calō (“to…

It is borrowed from Italian pista (“track, trail”), a variant of pesta, the only usual form today, recorded from 1550 as a riding-school term for the tracks left by horses. The Italian noun is a…

It is formed from route with the suffix -ine, in the figurative sense of “route” “way of proceeding, line of conduct”; Littré glosses it as a little road one always takes out of habit. “Route” is…

It is borrowed from Italian assassino (“hired killer”), also “assessino”, used in that sense by Dante early in the 14th century. Older forms, frequent in Medieval Latin, Old French and Old Occitan…

It is Latin dēficit (“it is lacking”), taken over unchanged, the third person singular present of Latin dēficere (“to fail, be lacking”), from “dē-” and Latin facere (“to do, make”). It was written…

It is formed with the intensive prefix é- (Latin ex-) on borrowed from Middle English crasen (“to break, shatter”) (about 1440), probably borrowed during the Hundred Years' War. The English verb…

It takes up Latin sardonicus (“sardonic”) (“sardonicus risus”), a calque of Ancient Greek σαρδόνιος (sardónios) or “sardanios” (“sardonios gelōs”) “malicious laughter”, interpreted as “of Sardinia”…

It is the present participle of briller (“to shine”) used as an adjective and a noun. The verb (1559) is borrowed from Italian brillare (“to flutter; to sparkle”), a word of obscure origin: Rey…

It is formed from French nue + -age, and replaced nue and nuée in common use; it is also the main word in the northern dialects, beside the older noun and crossed forms. That noun continues Vulgar…