disner

Forms

disner (present participle disnant; past participle disné; first-person singular present desjun)^[1]

• diner, digner, dysner, disgner^[2][3]

The first person singular present is desjun, with the stress on the stem.^[1][2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *disiūnō,^[1][4] shortened by haplology from *disieiūnō (“to break the fast”),^[4][5][1] from dis- and Late Latin iēiūnō (“to fast”),^[1] from Latin ieiūnus (“fasting, hungry”), which the OLD calls of unknown origin.^[6] The form Medieval Latin disnare is recorded from the 9th century.^[4][7]

The forms with the stress on the ending gave the Old French infinitive, while those stressed on the stem gave the other French verb from the same Latin, French déjeuner.^[4][7] The noun is the infinitive used as a noun.^[1][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Rashi, in his commentary on Genesis, glosses a Hebrew word with disner in Hebrew letters.^[9] Greimas dates the word to the early 12th century, in the Pèlerinage de Charlemagne,^[10] the DHLF to about 1131,^[4] and the DEAF's first dated text is the Couronnement de Louis, of the second third of the 12th century.^[11][12]

Semantic evolution

The verb first meant to take the first meal of the day, held about nine in the morning.^[7][4] In the 12th and 13th centuries that meal moved towards midday, and the doublet déjeuner was kept for a new morning meal; both meals later moved again, so that French dîner came to be the midday meal (1532) and then the evening meal (before 1747).^[7][4] Old French also used the verb transitively, “to feed, entertain at a meal”.^[10][3] The noun named the meal, and in England also breakfast and dinner-time.^[3]

Timeline

• c. 1100 – in Rashi's commentary on Genesis.^[9]
• 1133–1166 – in the Couronnement de Louis.^[11][12]
• c. 1150 – first Anglo-Norman record cited by the AND; in Wace's Vie de saint Nicolas.^[3][13]
• 1185–1200 – diner in Floovant.^[14]
• 1225 – the noun disner in a prose Grail text.^[15]
• 1532 – Middle French disner for the midday meal.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. to dine, to eat the first or main meal of the day.^[10][3][1]
2. to eat, make a meal of something.^[3]
3. (transitive) to feed, give a meal to, regale.^[10][3]

Noun

1. the main meal of the day, dinner;^[3][1] (Anglo-Norman) breakfast.^[3][1]
2. (Anglo-Norman) dinner-time.^[3]

Anglo-Norman

The AND first cites the verb from about 1150 and records spellings such as digner, deigner and disgner; the infinitive used as a noun is the meal, breakfast or dinner, and the hour of it.^[3] Etymonline derives the English verb dine and the noun dinner, both from about 1300, from the verb and its infinitive used as a noun.^[8]

Descendants

• Middle French disner (→ French dîner)^[1]
• Middle English dinen (borrowed; → English dine)^[1][8]
• Middle English diner (borrowed; → English dinner)^[1][8]
• Middle Irish dinér (borrowed)^[1]

Usage notes

Tobler–Lommatzsch, Godefroy's Complément and the AND head the word disner, the DMF and the TLFi dîner.^{[13][16][3][17]}

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b 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
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–), p. s.v. disner
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. dîner
5. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 3:94
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. ieiunus
7. ^ a b c d Gamillscheg, Ernst (1966–1969), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der französischen Sprache, 2nd, fully revised ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 346
8. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ a b Katan, Moshe (1988), Otzar La'azei Rashi: the Old French glosses of Rashi, Jerusalem; digital edition Sefaria, p. s.v. disner
10. ^ a b c d 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. disner
11. ^ 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. disner
12. ^ 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. CourLouisL1
13. ^ a b Tobler, Adolf; Lommatzsch, Erhard (1925–2002), Altfranzösisches Wörterbuch, 11 vols., Berlin / Wiesbaden / Stuttgart: Weidmann / Steiner, p. 2:1950
14. ^ Camps, Jean-Baptiste, et al., Geste: a lemmatised corpus of Old French chansons de geste, github (texts by DEAF siglum), p. FloovG
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. Graal_1225_prose
16. ^ 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. 9:391
17. ^ 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