desoneste

Forms

desoneste adj.^[1]

• deshoneste, deshonneste, deshonest, dishonest, dishonneste^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is formed from Old French des- + honeste (“honourable”).^[5] The adjective honeste is from Latin honestus (“honourable”),^[6] a derivative of honōs (“honour”).^[7] Etymonline also considers a Medieval Latin or Gallo-Roman compound with dis-, noting that the Latin formation was dehonestus.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest records are of the end of the 12th century: desoneste in the Lorraine translation of Saint Bernard's sermons, in a manuscript of about 1180,^[8] and deshoneste in Guischart de Beauliu's Anglo-Norman sermon.^[9][10] The AND's first citation is of the same period, with the sense "dishonourable, base".^[2]

Semantic evolution

The word covered what is unbecoming in general: dishonourable, improper and lewd.^[2] Godefroy defines it as violating propriety in matters of modesty, decency and honour.^[3] Of a thing it could mean ugly or horrible, as in the Vers de la mort, of the mid-13th century in the TLFi's dating and 1266 in the DEAF's,^[5][11] and Brunetto Latini's Trésor, about 1265, uses it for "dishonest, unseemly".^[5] In Middle French it was chiefly "immodest, indecent", of persons and of acts,^[12] and modern French déshonnête keeps that sense.^[5]

Timeline

• 1180–1200 – desoneste in the sermons of Saint Bernard, Lorraine.^[8]
• 1185–1200 – deshoneste in Guischart de Beauliu's Anglo-Norman sermon.^[9][2]
• c. 1213 – the noun deshonesteté in the AND.^[13]
• c. 1265 – "dishonest, unseemly" in Brunetto Latini's Trésor.^[5]
• 1266 – "horrible" in the Vers de la mort.^[5][11]

Meanings

Adjective

1. dishonourable, base, shameful.^[2]
2. improper, unseemly, indecent.^[1][3][5]
3. immoral, lewd.^[2][12]
4. (of a thing) ugly, horrible.^[5]

Anglo-Norman

The AND heads the adjective deshoneste, with the spellings deshonest and dishonest, and first cites it from the end of the 12th century; it also has the nouns deshonesteté, from about 1213, and deshonesté, from 1397.^[2][13][14] Middle English took the adjective as dishoneste "dishonourable; immodest", which the MED derives from des(h)oneste,^[15] and English dishonest is recorded from the late 14th century.^[7]

Word family

• desonesté
• deshonesteté
• deshonester

Descendants

• Middle French deshonneste (→ French déshonnête)^[12][5]
• Middle English dishoneste (borrowed; → English dishonest)^[15][7]

Related words

• honeste

Usage notes

Tobler–Lommatzsch heads the adjective desoneste, Godefroy's Complément and the AND deshoneste, and the DMF deshonneste.^[12][2]

References

1. ^ a b Tobler, Adolf; Lommatzsch, Erhard (1925–2002), Altfranzösisches Wörterbuch, 11 vols., Berlin / Wiesbaden / Stuttgart: Weidmann / Steiner, p. 2:1663
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–), p. s.v. deshoneste
3. ^ 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. 9:340
4. ^ 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
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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
6. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
7. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ 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. SBernAn2S
9. ^ 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. GuischartG_H
10. ^ 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. GuischartG
11. ^ 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. VMortAnW
12. ^ a b c d Dictionnaire du Moyen Français, version 2015 (DMF 2015), ATILF – CNRS & Université de Lorraine, atilf.fr/dmf, p. s.v. déshonnête
13. ^ a b Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–), p. s.v. deshonesteté
14. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–), p. s.v. deshonesté
15. ^ 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)