anoncier

Forms

anoncier (present participle anonçant; past participle anoncié; first-person singular present anonz)^[1]

• anoncer, anuncer, anuncier, annuncier, anonchier^[1][2][3]

The AND heads the insular word annuncier and lists annuntier and anuntier beside it.^[2] Picard anonchier is recorded in the 13th and 14th centuries.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin annūntiō (“to announce, make known”).^[1][5][6][7] The Latin verb, also written adnūntiō, is formed from ad- (“to”) and nūntiō (“to report”), from nūntius (“messenger”), a word of obscure origin.^[8][6] Its Romance cognates include Italian annunziare, Old Occitan annunciar and Spanish anunciar.^[9]

Bloch and Wartburg note that its form does not show whether the word is fully popular or was influenced by written Latin,^[10] while the DHLF has it result from the development of the Latin verb.^[6] The same Latin family gave Old French denoncier, prononcier and renoncier.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the Passion de Clermont, about 1000, which has the forms annunciaz and annuncian.^[11][12][13] There the word is religious: the DHLF and the FEW quote the phrase annunciar las virtuz Crist “to proclaim the powers of Christ”, a sense close to “preach”.^[6][5]

Semantic evolution

Beside “proclaim, preach”, the earliest texts already use the verb in lay contexts for “tell, relate”, and both uses last until at least the 16th century.^[6] From the Chanson de Roland on it also means making known an unknown fact or a coming event, and Wace has anoncier la lei Deu “to proclaim God's law”.^[6][5] Making known what is to come became the main sense in modern French annoncer, often with the idea of publicity from Froissart on.^[6] The noun French annonce “public announcement” was formed from the verb in the 16th century.^[7]

Timeline

• c. 1000 – annunciaz and annuncian in the Passion de Clermont.^[11][12][13]
• c. 1100 – anunciét in the Chanson de Roland, in its Anglo-Norman manuscript of about 1125.^[14][15]
• 1100–1150 – annuncez in the Cambridge Psalter, the first Anglo-Norman record.^[16][2]
• 1180 – the derived noun anoncion “words addressed to someone”.^[5]
• 14th century – Picard anonchier in the Dame à la Licorne.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. to proclaim, preach (the word of God).^[2][5]
2. to announce, make known (news).^[17][2]
3. to tell, relate.^[18][2]
4. to foretell, predict.^[2]
5. to denounce.^[2]
6. to place (a church) under the invocation of a saint.^[19]

Anglo-Norman

The AND heads the word annuncier, first cites it from the first half of the 12th century, and gives the senses “proclaim, declare”, “announce, relate”, “predict”, “denounce” and “preach”.^[2] The English verb announce, recorded from about 1500, comes from the Old French word.^[20]

Descendants

• French annoncer^[1][6]
• English announce (borrowed)^[20]

Usage notes

Tobler–Lommatzsch heads the word anoncier and anonciier,^[17] the DEAF anonciier,^[21] the AND annuncier,^[2] and the DMF annoncer.^[4]

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 Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–), p. s.v. annuncier
3. ^ a b FROLEX 3.0, lexique morphologique du français médiéval (IXe–XVe s.), Base de français médiéval, ENS de Lyon (from the BFM, the Nouveau Corpus d'Amsterdam and the DMF), github.com/sheiden/Medieval-French-Language-Toolkit
4. ^ a b c Dictionnaire du Moyen Français, version 2015 (DMF 2015), ATILF – CNRS & Université de Lorraine, atilf.fr/dmf, p. s.v. annoncer
5. ^ a b c d e Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 24:619
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. annoncer
7. ^ a b Gamillscheg, Ernst (1966–1969), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der französischen Sprache, 2nd, fully revised ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 47
8. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. annuntio
9. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh, p. 676
10. ^ Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France, p. 67
11. ^ a b Möhren, Frankwalt, Dictionnaire étymologique de l'ancien français (DEAF): Complément bibliographique, electronic version (DEAFBiblEl), Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, alma.hadw-bw.de/deafbibl (texts by siglum, with their dates), p. PassionA
12. ^ a b Rainsford, Thomas (2025), Old Gallo-Romance Corpus, github (the earliest Gallo-Romance texts, lemmatised; texts by siglum), p. PassionA
13. ^ a b Rainsford, Thomas, CorMétAF: lemmatised extracts of Old and Middle French verse and prose (990–1500), github (texts by siglum), p. PassionA
14. ^ UD Old French PROFITEROLE and UD Middle French PROFITEROLE treebanks, Universal Dependencies (from the SRCMF and the Base de français médiéval; texts by DEAF siglum), p. RolS
15. ^ Stein, Achim; Kunstmann, Pierre; Gleßgen, Martin-D., eds., Nouveau Corpus d'Amsterdam, version 4 (lemmatised corpus of Old French texts, after A. Dees), Universität Stuttgart, github.com/michaniets/NCA (texts by DEAF siglum), p. RolS
16. ^ Stein, Achim; Kunstmann, Pierre; Gleßgen, Martin-D., eds., Nouveau Corpus d'Amsterdam, version 4 (lemmatised corpus of Old French texts, after A. Dees), Universität Stuttgart, github.com/michaniets/NCA (texts by DEAF siglum), p. PsCambrM
17. ^ a b Tobler, Adolf; Lommatzsch, Erhard (1925–2002), Altfranzösisches Wörterbuch, 11 vols., Berlin / Wiesbaden / Stuttgart: Weidmann / Steiner, p. 1:400
18. ^ Greimas, Algirdas Julien (1979), Dictionnaire de l'ancien français jusqu'au milieu du XIVe siècle, 2nd ed., Paris: Larousse (printing of 1988), p. s.v. anoncier
19. ^ Godefroy, Frédéric (1881–1902), Dictionnaire de l'ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IXe au XVe siècle, 10 vols., Paris: Vieweg / Bouillon, p. 1:298
20. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
21. ^ Baldinger, Kurt; Möhren, Frankwalt; Städtler, Thomas, eds. (1971–2021), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'ancien français (DEAF), Heidelberg: Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften; DEAFél / DEAFpré, deaf-server.adw.uni-heidelberg.de, p. s.v. anonciier