forgier

Forms

forgier (present participle forjant; past participle forgié; first-person singular present forge)^[1]

• forger, forjer, furgier, favrechier, favargier^[1][2][3][4]

Picard texts have favrechier, and the Fribourg dialect favargier.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin fabricō (“to fashion, forge”).^[1][3][5] Gamillscheg starts from a Vulgar Latin active verb in place of the classical deponent fabricor.^[6] The Latin verb is formed from fabrica (“workshop”),^[7] which comes from faber (“smith”).^[8] The Romance cognates include Italian fabbricare, Old Occitan fargar, Spanish fraguar (“to forge”) and Romanian fereca (“to bind with iron”).^[9][3]

Beside the verb Old French had favrechier, mainly Picard, and favargier.^[4][3] The noun forge continues the Latin noun directly.^[10][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first records are in the Anglo-Norman psalters of the first half of the 12th century.^[5][11] Tobler–Lommatzsch and the TLFi cite the Cambridge Psalter, Psalm 49:20, for the figurative sense “to devise, invent”,^[12][5][11] and the Oxford Psalter has tu forjas l'albe et le soleil “you made the dawn and the sun”, in Psalm 72.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The sense of working metal is recorded from about 1160, in the Roman d'Eneas, where Vulcan is a master at forging gold, silver, iron and steel.^[5][13] In Chrétien de Troyes it is used five times, mostly of the forging of a sword; once, in Cligès, knights hammer on a shield as on an anvil.^[14] Tobler–Lommatzsch add “to strike coins”, “to build”, “to make ready” and, figuratively, “to create a person”.^[12] The figurative “to create” went out of use, while “to make up, invent” remained, from 1580 often with the notion of deceit.^[4]

The form forger dates from the 13th century,^[4] and modern French has forger.^[5] Forging coins is recorded in a royal ordinance of 1304,^[13] and forging documents is recorded in England,^[2] long before the FEW's first French record of that sense, in Voltaire.^[3] The FEW records that forms of the verb are found in nearly every Gallo-Romance dialect, mostly borrowed from the standard language.^[3]

Timeline

• 1100–1150 – the verb in the Cambridge Psalter, figuratively “to devise”.^[12][11]
• 1100–1150 – forjas “made” in the Oxford Psalter, by the TLFi's dating; the DEAF dates the text to the middle of the century.^[5][15]
• 1140–1160 – the Livre des simples medecines, the DEAF's earliest dated record.^[16][17]
• c. 1160 – forgier of metalwork in the Roman d'Eneas.^[5]
• 1150–1200 – forgier, forjad and forjanz in the Anglo-Norman Quatre livres des Rois.^[18]
• c. 1176 – forgent in Chrétien de Troyes's Cligès.^[14]
• 1304 – coins forged in the royal mints.^[13]

Meanings

Verb

1. to forge, work metal; to make a sword or other object of metal.^[14][12][2]
2. to strike, mint coins.^[12][2]
3. to build; to make ready.^[19]
4. to create; to form.^[19][5][2]
5. to invent, make up.^[2][20]
6. (Anglo-Norman) to counterfeit documents or letters.^[2]

Anglo-Norman

The AND heads the verb forger, with the spellings forgier, forjer, forgere and furgier, and dates its first citation to the first half of the 12th century.^[2] Its insular senses include coining money, forging letters and documents, and, as a past participle, false and plotted.^[2] Middle English forgen came from forgier and forger;^[21] in English the verb forge is first recorded in the early 14th century for counterfeiting a letter or seal, and only later for working metal.^[8]

Descendants

• French forger^[1]
• Middle English forgen (borrowed; → English forge, Scots forge)^[1]

Related words

• forge

Usage notes

Tobler–Lommatzsch, the DÉCT and Godefroy head the verb forgier, the AND forger.^{[12][14][13][2]} The spelling forgier is also a noun, “coffer, strongbox”, a variant of forcier with a source of its own.^[22][23][24]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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. forger
3. ^ a b c d e f g Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 3:343
4. ^ a b c d Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. forger
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. ^ Gamillscheg, Ernst (1966–1969), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der französischen Sprache, 2nd, fully revised ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 468
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. fabricō
8. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 3122
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 3121
11. ^ a b c 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. PsCambrM
12. ^ a b c d e f Tobler, Adolf; Lommatzsch, Erhard (1925–2002), Altfranzösisches Wörterbuch, 11 vols., Berlin / Wiesbaden / Stuttgart: Weidmann / Steiner, p. 3:2097
13. ^ a b c d 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. 9:639
14. ^ a b c d Dictionnaire électronique de Chrétien de Troyes (DÉCT), LFA / Université d'Ottawa – ATILF, CNRS / Université de Lorraine (2014), p. s.v. forgier
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. PsOxfM
16. ^ 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. forgier
17. ^ 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. LSimplMedD
18. ^ 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. Rois
19. ^ a b Tobler, Adolf; Lommatzsch, Erhard (1925–2002), Altfranzösisches Wörterbuch, 11 vols., Berlin / Wiesbaden / Stuttgart: Weidmann / Steiner, p. 3:2098
20. ^ 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. 4:79
21. ^ 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. ^ 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. 4:78
23. ^ 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. forgier
24. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 3455