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demener

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Etymology and origin of the Old French word demener

Confidence
Established
Formation
Derivation
First attested
c. 1090 Vie de saint Alexis More words from the 11th century
Ultimate origin
Late Latin minō
Etymology tree
inherited borrowed derived
Latin minae
Latin minor
French moindre
Italian minore
Spanish menor
English minor
Latin minō
Catalan menar
French mener
Italian menare
Romanian mâna
Old French demener
English demean
From the same root
Latin mināx ← minae
Latin minitor ← minor
Latin minus ← minor
French amener ← mener
French emmener ← mener
English demeanor ← demener

Forms

demener (present participle demenant; past participle demené; first-person singular present demein, demain)[1]

The stressed stem has ai or ei: demain, demainne, demeint.[3][4]

Etymology

It is formed from Old French de- + mener,[1][5][6] the prefix strengthening the simple verb "to lead".[5] The simple verb continues from Late Latin mināre (“to drive on (animals)”),[7] which Etymonline derives from Latin minor (“to threaten”).[8] In his first edition Gamillscheg took the compound to be older than the first texts,[9] and it has counterparts in Old Occitan demenar and Italian dimenare.[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the Vie de saint Alexis, about 1090 by the DEAF's dating and the mid-11th century by the TLFi's, with the forms demenét and demenede.[11][12][13] There it already means "to show, express (a feeling)".[6]

Semantic evolution

In Chrétien de Troyes the verb is most often used with a feeling or a noise as its object: Grant joie an demainnent et font "they show and make great joy".[3] Beside this it meant "to lead, guide", "to treat" and "to ill-treat", "to lead (a life)", "to manage", and "to drag out".[14][15] The reflexive "to throw oneself about" is in the Eneas of about 1150.[6][16] Middle French still used demener for leading troops or exercising a horse,[17] but modern French démener keeps only the reflexive, "to thrash about", to which 1558 added "to take great pains".[6]

Timeline

  • c. 1090 – demenét in the Vie de saint Alexis (mid-11th century by the TLFi's dating).[11][18][6]
  • c. 1100 – demened in the Chanson de Roland.[4][14]
  • 1113–1119 – the first Anglo-Norman record the AND cites.[2]
  • c. 1150 – the reflexive "to throw oneself about" in the Eneas.[6]
  • c. 1170 – demener in Chrétien de Troyes's Erec et Enide.[3]
  • 1558 – se démener "to take great pains".[6]

Meanings

Verb

  1. to show, express (a feeling): demener joie "to rejoice", demener duel "to lament".[3][19]
  2. to make (a noise, a cry).[3][2]
  3. to lead, guide, take (someone somewhere).[14][2]
  4. to treat, also to ill-treat, torment.[20][15][2]
  5. to lead (a life), spend (time).[20][2]
  6. to shake, agitate;[16][2] (reflexive) to throw oneself about.[16][2]
  7. (reflexive) to behave, conduct oneself.[2][15]
  8. (law) to pursue (someone) in court.[2]

Anglo-Norman

The AND first cites demener from 1113–1119, with the spellings demeiner, demesner and desmener, and records insular senses such as "to walk (a horse) up and down", "to fight (a battle)" and "to pursue in court".[2] Middle English demeinen "to rule, guide, conduct" was taken from the stressed stem demein-, demain-,[21] and Middle English demenure, formed from it, is, the source of English demeanour.[21][8] Etymonline adds that this older verb may have influenced, or even be the source of, English demean "to lower in dignity".[8]

Descendants

Usage notes

Tobler–Lommatzsch, Godefroy, the DÉCT and the AND all head the word demener, the DMF démener.[14][3][17] The stressed form demain is easily confused with demain "tomorrow" in the concordances.[22]

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ 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. demener
  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. demener
  4. ^ a b 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
  5. ^ a b Gamillscheg, Ernst (1966–1969), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der französischen Sprache, 2nd, fully revised ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 331
  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. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 6/2:100
  8. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  9. ^ Gamillscheg, Ernst (1926–1928), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der französischen Sprache, Heidelberg: Winter, p. 336
  10. ^ Bos, Alphonse (1891), Glossaire de la langue d'oïl (XIe–XIVe siècles), Paris: Maisonneuve, p. 156
  11. ^ a b Rainsford, Thomas (2025), Old Gallo-Romance Corpus, github (the earliest Gallo-Romance texts, lemmatised; texts by siglum), p. AlexisZ
  12. ^ Rainsford, Thomas, CorMétAF: lemmatised extracts of Old and Middle French verse and prose (990–1500), github (texts by siglum), p. AlexisS2
  13. ^ 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
  14. ^ a b c d Tobler, Adolf; Lommatzsch, Erhard (1925–2002), Altfranzösisches Wörterbuch, 11 vols., Berlin / Wiesbaden / Stuttgart: Weidmann / Steiner, p. 2:1365
  15. ^ 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. demener
  16. ^ 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. 9:298
  17. ^ a b c Dictionnaire du Moyen Français, version 2015 (DMF 2015), ATILF – CNRS & Université de Lorraine, atilf.fr/dmf, p. s.v. demener
  18. ^ 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
  19. ^ Foerster, Wendelin; Breuer, Hermann (1914), Kristian von Troyes: Wörterbuch zu seinen sämtlichen Werken, Halle: Niemeyer, p. 103
  20. ^ a b Tobler, Adolf; Lommatzsch, Erhard (1925–2002), Altfranzösisches Wörterbuch, 11 vols., Berlin / Wiesbaden / Stuttgart: Weidmann / Steiner, p. 2:1366
  21. ^ a b c 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)
  22. ^ 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

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Demener.” Etymologically, 13 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/fro/demener. Accessed 14 Nov. 2026.

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