Etymologically
Log in

aviser

History Permalink

Etymology and origin of the Old French word aviser

Confidence
Disputed
Formation
Derivation
First attested
c. 1090 Vie de saint Alexis More words from the 11th century
Ultimate origin
Latin videō
Etymology tree
inherited borrowed derived
Old French aviser
English advise
From the same root
English advisable ← advise
English adviser ← advise
English advisory ← advise

Forms

aviser (present participle avisant; past participle avisé; first-person singular present avis)[1]

Adviser, with a Latin ⟨d⟩, is frequent in Middle French, and avisier is the northern and eastern form.[4][5]

Etymology

Wiktionary and Etymonline derive it from Old French avis (“opinion, view”),[1][6] the noun from the phrase ço m'est a vis “it seems to me”, ultimately from Latin vīsum, the neuter past participle of videō (“to see”).[6][7] The REW lists Italian avvisare, Old Occitan avizar and Spanish avisar beside it,[7] and the DÉCT, the AND and the DMF file it in the FEW under Latin vīsus (“sight”).[8][2][9]

Gamillscheg takes it instead for a strengthened viser “to look at”,[10] and the DHLF forms the verb of seeing from Old French a- + viser, and derives the sense “to advise” from the noun, noting that the two uses have often merged.[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the Vie de saint Alexis, about 1090, where aviser means “to recognize”.[12][13][14]

Semantic evolution

The early senses are of sight: “to recognize”, “to catch sight of”, “to look at, examine”, and in battle “to take aim at”.[14][11] In Chrétien's Perceval: Au mialz qu'il puet an l'uel l'avise Et lesse aler .i. javelot “as best he can he aims at his eye and lets fly a javelin”.[8] From the 13th century the reflexive s'aviser de meant “to notice, become aware of”, and aviser a “to give thought to”.[11] The senses of mind, “to think out”, “to advise, inform” and “to deliberate”, became frequent in Anglo-Norman and Middle French.[14][2][9]

The modern verb is French aviser.[15] English took it as avisen “to view, consider” in the late 13th century and “to give counsel” in the late 14th; the ⟨d⟩ of advise dates from the 16th century.[6]

Timeline

  • c. 1090 – aviser and aviserent in the Vie de saint Alexis.[12][16][13]
  • 1120–1140 – the first record in the AND.[2]
  • 1133–1167 – aviser and avisé in the Charroi de Nîmes.[17]
  • c. 1176 – “to examine closely” in Chrétien's Cligès.[8][18]
  • c. 1190 – avisié in Fierabras.[19]

Meanings

Verb

  1. to see, catch sight of, notice.[14][2]
  2. to recognize.[14][20]
  3. to look at, examine, consider.[8][2][21]
  4. to aim at (with a weapon).[8][14]
  5. to think out, devise.[14]
  6. to advise, inform, instruct.[14][2]
  7. (reflexive) to reflect, deliberate; to become aware (of).[14][2]
  8. avisé (past participle): prudent, judicious.[2]

Anglo-Norman

The AND first cites the word from 1120–1140, lists the spellings adviser, advisser, aveiser and avizer, and gives a wide range of senses, from “to see, notice” and “to aim at” to “to advise”, “to decide” and “to confer with”.[2] Middle English avisen is from the Old French verb.[22]

Descendants

  • French aviser[1]
  • Middle English avisen (borrowed; → English advise)[1]
  • avis
  • viser

Usage notes

Tobler–Lommatzsch, the AND, the DÉCT and Godefroy head the word aviser;[14][2][8][23] the DHLF splits it into two verbs.[11]

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 Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–), p. s.v. aviser
  3. ^ Van Daele, Hilaire, Petit dictionnaire de l'ancien français, Paris: Garnier, p. 47
  4. ^ 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
  5. ^ ATILF (2017), LGeRM: lexique morphologique du moyen français, version 2.0.0, Nancy: ATILF – CNRS & Université de Lorraine, ORTOLANG (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 FR), p. s.v. aviser
  6. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 9384
  8. ^ a b c d e f Dictionnaire électronique de Chrétien de Troyes (DÉCT), LFA / Université d'Ottawa – ATILF, CNRS / Université de Lorraine (2014), p. s.v. aviser
  9. ^ a b Dictionnaire du Moyen Français, version 2015 (DMF 2015), ATILF – CNRS & Université de Lorraine, atilf.fr/dmf, p. s.v. aviser
  10. ^ Gamillscheg, Ernst (1966–1969), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der französischen Sprache, 2nd, fully revised ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 74
  11. ^ a b c d Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. aviser
  12. ^ a b Rainsford, Thomas (2025), Old Gallo-Romance Corpus, github (the earliest Gallo-Romance texts, lemmatised; texts by siglum), p. AlexisZ
  13. ^ 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. AlexisP
  14. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Tobler, Adolf; Lommatzsch, Erhard (1925–2002), Altfranzösisches Wörterbuch, 11 vols., Berlin / Wiesbaden / Stuttgart: Weidmann / Steiner, p. 1:741
  15. ^ 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
  16. ^ 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. AlexisZ
  17. ^ 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. CharroiSch_A1*
  18. ^ 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. CligesG
  19. ^ Camps, Jean-Baptiste, et al., Geste: a lemmatised corpus of Old French chansons de geste, github (texts by DEAF siglum), p. FierL
  20. ^ 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. aviser
  21. ^ 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. 8:258
  22. ^ Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  23. ^ 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. 1:531
Cite this entry

“Aviser.” Etymologically, 13 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/fro/aviser. Accessed 13 Nov. 2026.

Last edited on . ·