contenir

Forms

contenir (present participle contenant; past participle contenu)^[1]

• cuntenir, contener, conteiner, cuntenier^[1][2]

The forms follow tenir: Chrétien de Troyes has contient, contint, contenuz and the future contandra.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin contineō (“to hold together; to contain; to restrain”),^[1][5][6] formed from con- (“together”) and teneō (“to hold”).^[7][5] Bloch and Wartburg instead take it from the popular Latin verb, which followed the development of tenir.^[4] The FEW records Old Occitan contener beside it.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the Vie de saint Alexis, about 1090 (about 1050 by the TLFi's dating), where the reflexive contint means “behaved”.^{[9][10][11][6]}

Semantic evolution

The reflexive “to behave, conduct oneself” is the dominant sense in Old French and lasted only through the Middle Ages, but it survives in the derived noun contenance.^[5][6] Chrétien de Troyes uses it so: Car plus lieemant se contint Qu'ele pot, quant devant lui vint “for she behaved as cheerfully as she could when she came before him”.^[3] The DHLF dates the reflexive “to restrain oneself” to the Roland,^[5] and the FEW dates “to hold within its capacity” from the 12th century.^[8]

In Anglo-Norman legal and administrative writing the verb also meant “to stipulate” and “to measure, amount to”.^[2] Later French contenir has the senses “to have a capacity of” (1530) and “to keep within bounds” (1538).^[6] English contain first meant “restrain, behave” about 1300 and “include, enclose” from the 14th century.^[12]

Timeline

• c. 1090 – contint in the Vie de saint Alexis.^[10][11][13]
• c. 1100 – cuntienent in the Chanson de Roland.^[14]
• 1100–1133 – the first record in the AND.^[2]
• c. 1170 – se contint in Chrétien's Erec et Enide.^[3][15]
• 13th century – “to contain” in the Clef d'Amors.^[6]

Meanings

Verb

1. (reflexive) to behave, conduct oneself.^[3][16][2]
2. (reflexive) to restrain oneself, refrain (from).^[2][5]
3. to contain, hold, include.^[16][2]
4. to hold back, restrain, check.^[16][2]
5. (of a document) to stipulate.^[2]
6. to amount to, measure.^[2]
7. (reflexive) to abide by.^[17]

Anglo-Norman

The AND first cites the word from the first third of the 12th century and lists the spellings conteiner, contener and cuntenier.^[2] Its insular senses run from “to contain” and “to behave” to “to stipulate”, “to add up to” and “to be set with” gemstones.^[2] English contain comes from the stressed stem contein- of the Old French verb.^[12]

Word family

• contenance
• contenement

Descendants

• French contenir^[1][6]
• Norman cont'nîn^[1]
• Middle English conteinen (borrowed; → English contain)^[2][12]

Usage notes

Tobler–Lommatzsch, the AND, the DÉCT and Godefroy all head the word contenir.^{[16][2][3][17]}

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–), p. s.v. contenir
3. ^ 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. contenir
4. ^ a b Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France, p. 193
5. ^ a b c d e Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. contenir
6. ^ a b c d e f 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. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. contineō
8. ^ a b Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 2:1106
9. ^ 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. contenir
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. AlexisP
11. ^ a b Rainsford, Thomas (2025), Old Gallo-Romance Corpus, github (the earliest Gallo-Romance texts, lemmatised; texts by siglum), p. AlexisZ
12. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
13. ^ 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
14. ^ 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
15. ^ 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
16. ^ a b c d Tobler, Adolf; Lommatzsch, Erhard (1925–2002), Altfranzösisches Wörterbuch, 11 vols., Berlin / Wiesbaden / Stuttgart: Weidmann / Steiner, p. 2:766
17. ^ a b 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. 2:263