covrir

Forms

covrir (present participle covrant; past participle covert, covri; first-person singular present cuevre)^[1]

• cuvrir, coverir^[1][2]

Chrétien de Troyes writes the infinitive covrir, the participle covert and the stressed present cuevre or coevre.^[3] The FEW records Judeo-French cuvrir and cuevrir and Old Picard courvrir.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin cooperiō (“to cover completely”),^[4][5][6][1] a compound of con- and operiō (“to shut, close, cover”).^[7][8] The contracted form coperio is already found in Cato and Lucretius.^[7] De Vaan traces the simple verb to Proto-Italic *op-wer-i(e)- (“to cover up”) and further to Proto-Indo-European *h2uer-i(e)- (“to cover”).^[8]

The compound, which first meant covering something entirely, replaced the simple verb in this sense,^[9] and all the Romance languages kept it: Italian coprire, Spanish cubrir and Old Occitan cobrir.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the Passion de Clermont, of about 1000, with the forms cubrid and cubrirent.^[10][11][12] The TLFi takes two senses from it: hiding something by putting something else over it, and, of a thing, being spread abundantly over something.^[13]

Semantic evolution

From the first texts the idea of laying one thing over another served several ends: hiding, adorning, protecting.^[9] In Chrétien de Troyes the verb is used for spreading something over a surface, for covering a person to protect the body, for hair or ships spreading over a face or the sea, and figuratively for hiding grief or tears.^[3] Chrétien's Yvain has the figurative Por ma honte covrir "to cover my shame", and Cligès has par moz coverz "in veiled words", the source of French à mots couverts.^[13][9]

Other senses came early: protecting someone (about 1160), roofing a house (1172), and, in the reflexive, clothing oneself (about 1230); Tobler–Lommatzsch also records clouding over and, figuratively, excusing or justifying.^[13][14] The use for a male animal covering a female is recorded from 1372.^[13][14] The modern French word is couvrir.^[13]

Timeline

• c. 1000 – cubrid and cubrirent in the Passion de Clermont.^[10][11][12]
• c. 1090 – the participle cuvert in the Vie de saint Alexis.^[15][16]
• c. 1100 – cuvert in the Chanson de Roland.^[17][13]
• 1100–1133 – the first Anglo-Norman record cited by the AND.^[2]
• c. 1170 – in Chrétien de Troyes's Erec et Enide.^[3][18]
• 1172 – Por ma honte covrir in Yvain, by the TLFi's dating.^[13]
• 1176 – par moz coverz in Cligès.^[13]
• 1372 – of animals mating.^[13]

Meanings

Verb

1. to cover, to lay something over something.^[3][2]
2. to hide, conceal, to keep secret.^[3][19][14]
3. to protect; to put on armour.^[19][2]
4. to roof a building.^[2][13]
5. of a male animal, to cover, mate with.^[2][14]
6. (reflexive) to cover oneself, to clothe oneself; to take shelter.^[2][19]
7. (of the sky) to become overcast.^[14][13]

Anglo-Norman

The AND heads the verb coverir and first cites it from the first third of the 12th century.^[2] Besides the common senses it records insular uses such as flooding, annulling, laying the table, misrepresenting something as one's own and dissembling.^[2] Middle English coveren comes from the Old French verb, and the MED derives the variant keveren from the stressed stem cuevre.^[20] The English word cover is recorded from the middle of the 12th century in the sense "protect".^[21]

Word family

• covert
• coverture
• descovrir

Descendants

• Middle French couvrir (→ French couvrir)^[22][13]
• Middle English coveren (borrowed; → English cover)^[20][21]

Related words

• ovrir

Usage notes

The head is the same in Tobler–Lommatzsch and the DÉCT (covrir), while the AND has coverir and the DMF couvrir.^{[14][3][2][23]}

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. coverir
3. ^ 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. covrir
4. ^ a b Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 2:1140
5. ^ Gamillscheg, Ernst (1966–1969), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der französischen Sprache, 2nd, fully revised ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 297
6. ^ a b Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France, p. 206
7. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. operiō
9. ^ a b c Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. couvrir
10. ^ 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. covrir
11. ^ a b Rainsford, Thomas, CorMétAF: lemmatised extracts of Old and Middle French verse and prose (990–1500), github (texts by siglum), 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 c d e f g h i j k l 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
14. ^ a b c d e f Tobler, Adolf; Lommatzsch, Erhard (1925–2002), Altfranzösisches Wörterbuch, 11 vols., Berlin / Wiesbaden / Stuttgart: Weidmann / Steiner, p. 2:1003
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. AlexisZ
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. AlexisS2
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. ^ 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
19. ^ a b c 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. covrir
20. ^ a b 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)
21. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
22. ^ Dictionnaire du Moyen Français, version 2015 (DMF 2015), ATILF – CNRS & Université de Lorraine, atilf.fr/dmf
23. ^ Dictionnaire du Moyen Français, version 2015 (DMF 2015), ATILF – CNRS & Université de Lorraine, atilf.fr/dmf, p. s.v. couvrir