French words first recorded in the 16th century

It is formed from French place + -er. “Place” itself comes from Latin platēa (“broad street”), which took the sense “public square” in late Latin, perhaps from Ancient Greek πλατεῖα (plateîa), the…

It is probably a shortening of “consolateur” (1554), the name of the carved figures that support a cornice or serve as armrests in choir stalls, the figure being thought to “console” those standing…

It is borrowed from Italian schizzo (“rough sketch”) (early 16th century), Frenchified, earlier “splash made by a spurting liquid” (14th century, Boccaccio), the noun of schizzare (“to spurt…

The modern word is borrowed from Italian lista (“strip, border; list of names”) (late 13th century in Italian), which comes from a Germanic word for “border, strip”, Proto-West Germanic *lista, seen…

It is derived from barrique “cask”, because the first barricades were often made of casks; Rey sees the suffix -ade as formed on the model of Italian loanwords of the same period such as gabionnade…

It is borrowed from Italian concerto (“agreement; ensemble of voices and instruments”) (16th century), a noun from concertare (“to bring into agreement”), from Latin concertō (“to contend, vie”)…

It is borrowed from Latin cultus (“care, cultivation; worship”), the noun of Latin colere (“to inhabit; to till; to honour, worship”) (see cultiver, culture), from a root “*kwel-”. The Latin word…

According to the TLFi and Rey it is borrowed from Spanish escapada (“escape”) (recorded only from 1630), the feminine past participle used as a noun of “escapar”, of the same origin as échapper…

It is borrowed from Italian gazzetta (“news sheet”) (before 1580), from the name of the Venetian news sheet Gazeta de le novità, which cost a gazeta, a small coin struck at Venice from 1539 and…

It is borrowed from Medieval Latin resultātum (“result”), a word of scholastic Latin, the neuter past participle of resultō (“to spring back, rebound”) used as a noun (see résulter). Littré calls…

It is borrowed from Spanish camarada (“barrack room; comrade”), from cámara (“room”), corresponding to French chambre. Italian camerata probably influenced the form “camerade”.

It is from French Bayonne + -ette, from the name of the town of Bayonne in the Basque Country, which had arms and cutlery workshops in the 16th and 17th centuries and where the weapon was first…

It is borrowed from Italian ciarlatano (15th century), a cross between cerretano, properly “an inhabitant of Cerreto”, a village near Spoleto whose people often sold drugs in market places, and…

It is borrowed from Latin multiplex (“with many folds; manifold, numerous”), formed from multus (“much, many”) and the element “-plex” of multiplicative adjectives such as duplex and simplex, which…

It is borrowed from Venetian laguna (“coastal lagoon”) (before 1488), a word that first meant “marsh, pond” in Italian (about 1304), from Latin lacūna (“ditch, hole, pool”), a derivative of lacus…

It is formed from French Chine + -ois. Rey explains the name of the country as an adaptation of an Indian name meaning “the land of Qin”, after the first dynasty to rule all China in the 3rd century…

It is borrowed from Old Occitan trobador (“poet, composer”), the oblique case of trobaire, from trobar (“to find; to compose verse”). Trobar has the same origin as French trouver, from Latin Vulgar…

It is from French risque + -er. risque (1578) was borrowed from Italian risco, now “rischio”, compare the verb risicare. Bloch and Wartburg trace “risco” to a Latin “resecum”, a deverbal noun from…

It is from French trotter + -oir, “a place for trotting”. trotter is from Frankish *trottōn, an intensive form of the family of German treten (“to tread”); compare trotten.

1. The grill is borrowed from Tupi “mokaém” “wooden grill”, through a variant “bokaem”, ⟨p⟩, ⟨m⟩ and ⟨b⟩ often alternating at the beginning of words in Tupi and Guarani; Wiktionary gives borrowed…

It is borrowed from Italian grado or Latin gradus (“step; rank”), a derivative of gradior (“to walk, step”). Rey explains that “gradus” meant a pace, then a step on a ladder or stair, hence “degree”…

It is borrowed from Italian manganese, recorded in Italian from 1301–1303 as the name of black magnesia (manganese dioxide), whose origin is uncertain. Bloch and Wartburg, Gamillscheg and Corominas…

It is borrowed from Latin mīlitia (“military service; campaign”), from mīles (“soldier”), a word of unknown origin, perhaps borrowed from Etruscan. In Church Latin “militia” was also applied to the…

1. The adverb is borrowed from Italian piano (“softly, gently”), an adverb from about 1300–1313 (Dante), often doubled as “pian piano”, from the adjective piano (“flat, smooth; calm, soft”), from…

It is the imperative “rendez-vous” “betake yourselves (to such a place)” used as a noun, from rendre in its reflexive sense “se rendre” “to go” and the pronoun vous. It passed into English…

It is borrowed from Italian veste (“garment, clothing”) (before 1484, Pulci; first “vesta” in Dante), from Latin vestis (“clothing, garment”), through its accusative vestem. Rey notes that the Latin…

It is a dialect variant of banne, probably from north-eastern France, compare Lorraine “bène” “wicker basket” and Walloon “bèné”, a large cart for carrying manure. The word goes back to Late Latin…

It is borrowed from Spanish cuadrilla (“troop, team, company”), recorded in Spanish from 1546 in these senses and earlier (13th century) for the division of an army into four parts to share the…

It is borrowed from New Latin gnomus, a word of the alchemists used by Paracelsus as a synonym of Pygmaei “pygmies”. The origin of the Latin word is uncertain. It may be a mistake for “genomus”, a…

It is borrowed from Late Latin expānsiō (“extension, spreading out”), from “expansum”, the supine of Latin expandō (“to spread out, unfold”), formed from “ex-” and Latin pandō (“to spread”). The…

It is formed from French sale + -aud. “Sale” “dirty” comes from Frankish *salo (“murky, dull”), matched by Old English salu and Old Irish sail. The feminine “salaude” was supplanted by salope, which…

It is borrowed from New Latin alcohol, a word of the alchemists, itself from Arabic الكحل (al-kuḥl, “powdered antimony, kohl”), made of the Arabic article and the noun كحل (kuḥl). The same Arabic…

It is borrowed from Late Latin clīnicus (“bedridden; physician who visits the sick”) and its noun “clinice” “medicine practised at the bedside”, from Ancient Greek κλινικός (klinikós, “of the bed”)…

It is borrowed from Latin contāctus (“touch; contagion”), from the past participle of contingō (“to touch”), formed with cum on tangō (“to touch”) (see tact). In Latin it meant both touch in general…

It is formed from French sur- + veiller (“to keep watch”), the verb being from Latin vigilō (“to be awake, watch”). The Anglo-Norman “surveiller” “to keep vigil over” (1260–1270) is an earlier…

It is a learned borrowing borrowed from Latin inquiētus (“restless, troubled”), formed from in- (“not”) and quiētus (“at rest”), from quiēs (“rest”). The verb inquiéter (12th century) and the noun…

It is borrowed from Italian numero (“number; number in a register or a lottery”), itself from Latin numerus (“number”), which gave French nombre, its doublet. Pasquier explains that the word came in…

It is borrowed from Arabic طلسم (ṭilasm, “talisman, charm”), which the TLFi has pass through Persian; the vowels were transposed, and the ending “-an” is explained by the Arabic dual طلسمان…

It is borrowed from Turkish tülbent (“turban”), by comparison of the flower's shape with a turban, itself from a Persian word for “turban”. In 1554 the imperial ambassador Busbecq, travelling in…

It is borrowed from Italian burlesco, at first in “alla burlesca” (before 1566), taken over by ear and later respelled after the Italian. It is derived from burla (“joke, trick”), probably from…

It is a deverbal noun from French attaquer. The verb (1540) is a military borrowing of Italian attaccare (“to attack; to join”), used in phrases such as “attaccare battaglia” “to join battle” and…

It is borrowed from Neapolitan carusello (Italian carosello), the name of a game of Moorish origin brought to Naples by the Spaniards in the 16th century (about 1580, Sassetti), in which two teams…

It is borrowed from Late Latin monētārius (“of money, monetary”) (5th century), from Latin monēta (“mint; coinage”), the source of the inherited monnaie; in classical Latin “monetarius” referred to…

It is borrowed from Italian balletto (“little dance; danced scene”) (16th century), the diminutive in “-etto” of “ballo” “ball, dance”, the noun of “ballare” “to dance”, which corresponds to Old…

It is borrowed from Spanish chocolate (1590; “chocollatl” about 1580), itself from Nahuatl chocolātl, a Nahuatl word of Mexico whose formation is hard to analyse except for the ending “-atl”…

It is borrowed from Spanish criollo (from 1590), itself from Portuguese crioulo, recorded in 1632 for a black person born in Brazil but probably first “servant brought up in the master's house”; Old…

The origin is uncertain or unknown. It may be connected with Norman “bisque” “sour soup” or “bitter drink”, whose derivation from the name of the Spanish province of Biscay (“Biscaye”) is not…

It is borrowed from Occitan coucoun (“eggshell; cocoon”), a derivative of coco (“shell”), of the same origin as coque. Its first user, Olivier de Serres, wrote of the silkworms of the Cévennes in…

It comes from the phrases “poule d'Inde”, “coq d'Inde” and “poulet d'Inde”, “hen, cock, chick of India”, with the preposition de joined to the name Inde. In the Middle Ages these names meant the…