cler

Forms

cler (feminine clere)^[1]

• clar^[2][3]

The oldest texts have clar, cler is the usual form from the 11th century, and clair, remade after the Latin word, appears in the 14th.^[2][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin clārus (“bright, clear, loud; famous”).^{[5][6][4][1][7]} The DHLF relates the Latin word to calō (“to call”) and clāmō (“to shout”), and holds that it first applied to the voice and to sounds before it was used of sight and then of the mind and of famous people.^[2]

Its Romance cognates include Italian chiaro, Romanian chiar and Old Occitan clar;^[8] Spanish claro was taken again from Latin.^[4] The Old French word went through clar in the oldest texts to the usual form, and the spelling of French clair follows the Latin word.^[2][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first records are clar in the Passion de Clermont and the Vie de saint Léger, both of about 1000.^[9][10][3] The Vie de saint Alexis uses it of a face shining in its colour, Vit del saint ome le vis cler e bel "he saw the holy man's face, bright and fair".^[11][7]

Semantic evolution

The DHLF explains the almost simultaneous senses of sight and sound in Old French by the word's Latin past.^[2] The Roland already has a bright sun, day, helmet and blood and a clear-sounding bugle, and uses the word as an adverb for sounding and seeing clearly.^[7] Limpid water is recorded from the middle of the 13th century, "sparse" (of ranks of soldiers) from about 1174, and "evident" and "clear-sighted" from the end of the 12th century.^[7] Greimas also lists "certain, assured" and "illustrious, famous", and a noun meaning "brightness" from about 1112.^[12] Rashi's Talmud commentary glosses Hebrew words for "clear, lucid" with the French word in Hebrew letters.^[13]

In trade and accounts the word came to mean "net, free of debt", a sense the FEW records in Middle French from the 15th century.^[14][5] The modern French word is clair.^[7]

Timeline

• c. 1000 – clar in the Passion de Clermont.^[9][10]
• c. 1000 – clar in the Vie de saint Léger.^[3][15]
• c. 1090 – vis cler in the Vie de saint Alexis.^[7][11][16]
• c. 1100 – soleil cler and graile cler in the Chanson de Roland.^[7][17]
• 1100–1133 – the first Anglo-Norman record cited by the AND.^[18]
• c. 1170 – in Chrétien de Troyes's Erec et Enide.^[19][20]
• c. 1174 – "sparse" in Benoît de Sainte-Maure's Roman de Troie.^[7]
• 14th century – the spelling clair.^[4][2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. bright, shining, radiant.^[18][12][1]
2. (of sound or a voice) clear, loud.^[18][7]
3. (of liquids or the weather) clear, limpid, fine.^[18][12]
4. evident, obvious; certain.^[18][12]
5. famous, illustrious.^[12][18]
6. sparse, thin.^[7]
7. (of accounts) net; free of debt.^[18]

Adverb

1. clearly, brightly; loudly.^[18][7]

Noun

1. brightness, light; daybreak.^[12][18]

Anglo-Norman

The AND heads the word cler and first cites it from the first third of the 12th century; its insular senses include clear wheat and honey, accounts that are net, and freedom from debt.^[18] Rothwell finds the sense "free of debt" in the records of the London Grocers' Company, notes that neither Godefroy nor Tobler–Lommatzsch has it, and argues that the merchants trading across the Channel shared it, while the MED derives the Middle English sense, of 1420, from continental French.^[14] The English word clear, recorded from about 1300, comes from the Old French word.^[21][22]

Word family

• clersemé

Descendants

• Middle French cler (→ French clair)^[1]
• Middle Dutch claer (borrowed; → Dutch klaar)^[1]
• Middle English cler (borrowed; → English clear, Scots clair)^[1]

Related words

• clarté

Usage notes

Tobler–Lommatzsch, the DÉCT and the AND head the word cler, the DMF and the TLFi clair.^{[23][19][18][24]} Wiktionary's page also holds a cler "key", from Latin clāvem, which belongs with clef.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. clair
3. ^ a b c Rainsford, Thomas (2025), Old Gallo-Romance Corpus, github (the earliest Gallo-Romance texts, lemmatised; texts by siglum), p. SLégerA
4. ^ a b c d e Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France, p. 175
5. ^ a b Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 2:739
6. ^ Gamillscheg, Ernst (1966–1969), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der französischen Sprache, 2nd, fully revised ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 249
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 1963
9. ^ a b 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. cler
10. ^ a b Rainsford, Thomas, CorMétAF: lemmatised extracts of Old and Middle French verse and prose (990–1500), github (texts by siglum), p. PassionA
11. ^ a b Wiktionnaire (French Wiktionary), fr.wiktionary.org
12. ^ a b c d e f 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. cler
13. ^ Katan, Moshe (1988), Otzar La'azei Rashi: the Old French glosses of Rashi, Jerusalem; digital edition Sefaria, p. s.v. cler
14. ^ a b Rothwell, William (1992), « The French Vocabulary in the Archive of the London Grocers' Company »; reprinted on the Anglo-Norman Hub, anglo-norman.net
15. ^ 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. SLégerA
16. ^ 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
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. RolS
18. ^ 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. cler
19. ^ a b Dictionnaire électronique de Chrétien de Troyes (DÉCT), LFA / Université d'Ottawa – ATILF, CNRS / Université de Lorraine (2014), p. s.v. cler
20. ^ 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. ErecF
21. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
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. ^ Tobler, Adolf; Lommatzsch, Erhard (1925–2002), Altfranzösisches Wörterbuch, 11 vols., Berlin / Wiesbaden / Stuttgart: Weidmann / Steiner, p. 2:473
24. ^ Dictionnaire du Moyen Français, version 2015 (DMF 2015), ATILF – CNRS & Université de Lorraine, atilf.fr/dmf, p. s.v. clair