chaste

Forms

chaste^[1]

• caste, chast, chaaste^[1][2][3]

The Anglo-Norman and Picard texts often write caste with an unpalatalised initial, a form counted 37 times in the corpora beside 120 for chaste.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is a semi-learned word, borrowed from Latin castus (“pure, chaste”), taken from the Latin of the Church.^[1][5][6] The FEW files it under the Latin adjective,^[7] and Gamillscheg and Bloch–Wartburg call it a borrowing of the 12th century.^[8][9] In Latin the word first meant “conforming to the rules and rites”, and the DHLF explains the later sense “free from fault, pure” by its confusion with a form of careō (“to lack”);^[5] the OLD too takes castus to be perhaps a participle of that verb.^[10] Its Romance cognates include Italian casto, Old Occitan cast and Spanish casto.^[11]

Pope takes the kept /s/ of the word as a sign that it was borrowed or re-formed after the time when Old French lost /s/ before a consonant.^[12] The masculine has the ending ⟨-e⟩ of the Latin feminine casta, a form Van Daele and Tobler–Lommatzsch describe as serving for both genders.^[13][14]

Earliest recorded meaning

The DEAF's earliest record is the Anglo-Norman Lapidaire apocalyptique, probably by Philippe de Thaon, of the first third of the 12th century, in a manuscript of the late 13th century; it already has both caste and chaste.^[15][4] The AND dates its first citation 1113–1119, and Philippe de Thaon's Comput of those years has caste.^[2][16] The sense is that of the Latin of the Church: a person who keeps body and soul pure.^[7][2]

Semantic evolution

From the first texts the word described a person, above all one living without sexual relations: in Chrétien de Troyes's Cligès a man qui chaste ne se vialt tenir “who will not keep himself chaste” is told to follow Saint Paul's advice.^[17] From the late 12th or early 13th century it also qualified things, as in the Moralités sur Job, which speak of the chaste movements of the heart.^[6][14] The Middle French examples of the DMF use it for one who abstains from all sexual activity under a vow, and especially for a woman who keeps from unlawful love.^[18]

The form caste lasted into the 17th century.^[7] The word was little used in classical French: Gamillscheg notes that Racine changed chaste to noble in a line of Phèdre.^[8][6] It returned with symbolic and literary uses such as chaste feu in Ronsard, 1552, and was applied to style before 1676; modern French has chaste.^[6][5] The abstract noun was first chastee, from about 1121, which the learned chasteté replaced from 1180 on.^[5]

Timeline

• 1100–1133 – chaste and caste in the Anglo-Norman Lapidaire apocalyptique.^[15][4]
• 1113–1119 – caste in Philippe de Thaon's Comput, the period of the AND's first citation.^[16][4][2]
• 1130–1140 – chaste of a person in Wace's Conception Nostre Dame.^[6][5]
• c. 1176 – chaste in Chrétien de Troyes's Cligès.^[17]
• late 12th or early 13th century – caste of a thing in the Moralités sur Job.^[6]
• 1552 – chaste feu in Ronsard.^[6]

Meanings

Adjective

1. chaste, virginal; living without sexual relations.^[2][17][1]
2. pure in spirit or faith, virtuous.^[2][19]
3. of things: pure, free from sin.^[6][5]

Anglo-Norman

The AND heads the word chaste, with the spellings chast and caste, and dates its first citation 1113–1119; its senses are “chaste, virginal” and “pure in spirit or faith”.^[2] Middle English took it about 1200 as Middle English chaste, whence the English word chaste.^[20]

Word family

• chastee
• chastece
• chastement

Descendants

• Middle French chaste (→ French chaste)^[1]
• Middle English chaste (borrowed; → English chaste)^[1]

Related words

• chasteté

Usage notes

Tobler–Lommatzsch, the DÉCT, the AND and the DMF all head the word chaste;^{[14][17][2][18]} in Chrétien de Troyes it occurs once.^[17]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–), p. s.v. chaste
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 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. chaste
5. ^ a b c d e f Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. chaste
6. ^ a b c d e f g h 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
7. ^ a b c Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 2:478
8. ^ a b Gamillscheg, Ernst (1966–1969), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der französischen Sprache, 2nd, fully revised ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 233
9. ^ Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France, p. 164
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. castus
11. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 1751
12. ^ Pope, Mildred K. (1934), From Latin to Modern French with Especial Consideration of Anglo-Norman: Phonology and Morphology, Manchester: Manchester University Press (revised reprint 1952), p. § 627
13. ^ Van Daele, Hilaire, Petit dictionnaire de l'ancien français, Paris: Garnier, p. 73
14. ^ a b c Tobler, Adolf; Lommatzsch, Erhard (1925–2002), Altfranzösisches Wörterbuch, 11 vols., Berlin / Wiesbaden / Stuttgart: Weidmann / Steiner, p. 2:302
15. ^ 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. LapidapS
16. ^ 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
17. ^ a b c d e Dictionnaire électronique de Chrétien de Troyes (DÉCT), LFA / Université d'Ottawa – ATILF, CNRS / Université de Lorraine (2014), p. s.v. chaste
18. ^ a b Dictionnaire du Moyen Français, version 2015 (DMF 2015), ATILF – CNRS & Université de Lorraine, atilf.fr/dmf, p. s.v. chaste
19. ^ 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. chaste
20. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com