base

Forms

base f (oblique plural bases)^[1]

• basse^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin basis (“pedestal, foundation”),^[1][4][5] itself from Ancient Greek βάσις (básis, “stepping, step; base”).^[6][7] The Greek noun belongs to βαίνω (baínō, “to walk, go”),^[7] and the DHLF connects that family with a root Proto-Indo-European *gʷem- that also gave Latin veniō (“to come”).^[8] The FEW notes that the word is popular only in Italian dialects and a loanword in the other Romance languages.^[9]

The DHLF dates the spelling with ⟨ss⟩ to the beginning of the 12th century and the present spelling to about 1160.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The DEAF's first record is Philippe de Thaon's Comput, an Anglo-Norman poem of 1113 or 1119, with the spelling basses, for what bears the weight of a body.^[2][10] In the Cambridge Psalter, of the first half of the 12th century, it renders the Latin word for the foundation on which the earth is set in Psalm 103.^[11]

Semantic evolution

In Old French the word named a foundation or the base of a structure: the bases of the temple in the Quatre livres des Rois, the base set under a building in the Roman d'Eneas.^[12][11] Bloch and Wartburg note that it was rare before the 16th century and then often masculine.^[4] The DMF has the geometric sense in Nicolas Chuquet in 1484,^[13] the DHLF dates it to 1549, and the abstract sense of the principles of a system to 1598.^[8]

Timeline

• 1113–1119 – basses in Philippe de Thaon's Comput.^[2][10]
• 1100–1150 – basse in the Cambridge Psalter.^[11]
• c. 1155 – base in the Roman d'Eneas.^[14][11]
• 1150–1200 – bases in the Quatre livres des Rois.^[15][12]
• 1484 – the base of a triangle, in Nicolas Chuquet.^[13]
• 1598 – the abstract sense of fundamental principles.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. a foundation, what bears the weight of a body.^[2][3][11]
2. the base or pedestal of a column; a substructure.^[3][12]
3. the bottom, the ground.^[3]

Anglo-Norman

The AND first cites the word from the first half of the 12th century, with the spelling basse, for a foundation, the bottom or ground, and the base of a column.^[3] Etymonline dates English base “foundation, pedestal” to about 1300.^[16]

Word family

• basseüre

Descendants

• French base^[1]
• Middle English base (borrowed; → English base, Scots base)^[1]

Usage notes

Tobler–Lommatzsch has a second base meaning “dagger”,^[11] a short sword or cutlass in Roquefort.^[17]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d 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. base
3. ^ a b c d e Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–), p. s.v. base
4. ^ a b Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France, p. 100
5. ^ Gamillscheg, Ernst (1966–1969), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der französischen Sprache, 2nd, fully revised ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 101
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. basis
7. ^ a b Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. βάσις
8. ^ a b c d Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. base
9. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 1:272
10. ^ 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. PhThCompS
11. ^ a b c d e f Tobler, Adolf; Lommatzsch, Erhard (1925–2002), Altfranzösisches Wörterbuch, 11 vols., Berlin / Wiesbaden / Stuttgart: Weidmann / Steiner, p. 1:858
12. ^ a b c 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. 8:298
13. ^ a b Dictionnaire du Moyen Français, version 2015 (DMF 2015), ATILF – CNRS & Université de Lorraine, atilf.fr/dmf, p. s.v. base
14. ^ Penn Parsed Corpus of Historical French, version 1.0, University of Pennsylvania & University of Ottawa (texts by file name), p. 1155-eneas2-bfm-r
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. Rois
16. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
17. ^ Roquefort, Jean-Baptiste-Bonaventure de (1808; supplement 1820), Glossaire de la langue romane, Paris: Warée, p. 2:135