hasart

Forms

hasart m (oblique plural hasarz, hasartz; nominative singular hasarz, hasartz)^[1]

• hasard, asard, asart^[2]
• hazart, hazard, asar^[3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Spanish azar (“an unlucky throw at dice; a dice game”), from Arabic اَلزَّهْر (az-zahr, “the die”), the noun with the assimilated article.^[4][5][6] Bloch and Wartburg find the Spanish word in Alfonso the Wise's book of chess of 1283, the oldest European translation of an Eastern book of games.^[5] Wiktionary takes the word straight from Arabic, fitted to the suffix -art,^[1] and Gamillscheg thought the Spanish route possible but not necessary.^[7]

Since the sense "die" is missing from Classical Arabic, Corominas started from the Classical sense "flower" of the same word, a flower being painted on one face of the die, and others have proposed another Arabic verb meaning "to play at dice".^[4][6] Etymonline calls the origin uncertain.^[8] The REW sets beside it Italian zara (“dice game”), Old Occitan azar and Catalan atzar, and rejects William of Tyre's derivation from the name of a castle in Palestine.^[9]

The initial ⟨h⟩ follows a medieval habit of writing “h-” before words beginning with a vowel, especially foreign ones, as in Medieval Latin azardus and hazardus; later the “h” came to be pronounced.^[5][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is Everard of Kirkham's Distichs of Cato, about 1150 by the TLFi and 1145 by Greimas, in the sense of a game of dice.^[4][10] The AND's first insular citation is of 1155.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In Chrétien de Troyes the word is the dice game itself: Li autre joent d'autre part / Ou a la mine ou a hasart, / Cil as eschas et cil as tables "the others play elsewhere, at mine or at hazard, some at chess and some at tables".^[11] By 1200 it named a particular throw in the game,^[4] the six: John of Garland glosses Latin senio with it.^[12] In the first quarter of the 13th century the Reclus de Molliens uses it figuratively, Mors au pekeour hasart fait "Death deals the sinner a losing throw".^[4] Tobler–Lommatzsch also has it for something of no value, like a die, and for a dice player.^[13]

Middle French added "risk, danger" in the 15th century and "chance event" early in the 16th,^[4][6] and before 1573 the word named the cause given to what happens without visible reason.^[4] Italian azzardo and English hazard were taken from it.^[5] The modern word is French hasard.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 1150 – Everard of Kirkham's Distichs of Cato (1145 by Greimas).^[4][10]
• 1155 – first Anglo-Norman citation.^[2]
• c. 1170 – hasart in Chrétien de Troyes's Erec et Enide.^[11][14]
• 1175–1201 – hasard and hasart in two manuscripts of branch VI of the Roman de Renart.^[15][16]
• 1200 – a particular throw at dice, in Jean Bodel's Jeu de saint Nicolas.^[4]
• c. 1227 – hasart in Gautier de Coinci's Miracles de Nostre Dame.^[17]
• 1403 – hazart "dice player".^[12]
• 1400s – "risk, danger".^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. a game of dice, hazard.^[11][2][1]
2. a particular throw at dice, the six.^[4][12][2]
3. (figurative) a losing throw, a mishap.^[4]
4. a die, as something of no value.^[13]
5. a dice player.^[13][12]

Anglo-Norman

The AND heads the word hasard, with the spellings asard, asart and hasart, and first cites it from 1155, for a game of chance played with dice, a die, and the throw of six.^[2] Middle English hasard, from the Old French word, first meant a game of chance played with dice,^[18] and Etymonline dates the English word hazard to about 1300.^[8]

Descendants

• Middle French hasard (→ French hasard)^[19][4]
• Middle English hasard (borrowed; → English hazard)^[18][8]
• Italian azzardo (borrowed)^[9][5]

Usage notes

Tobler–Lommatzsch, Godefroy and the DÉCT head the word hasart, the AND and the DMF hasard, and the DEAF asart.^{[13][12][11][2][19][20]}

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–), p. s.v. hasard
3. ^ 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
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o 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
5. ^ a b c d e Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France, p. 357
6. ^ a b c Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. hasard
7. ^ Gamillscheg, Ernst (1926–1928), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der französischen Sprache, Heidelberg: Winter, p. 542
8. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 9595
10. ^ a b 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. hasart
11. ^ a b c d Dictionnaire électronique de Chrétien de Troyes (DÉCT), LFA / Université d'Ottawa – ATILF, CNRS / Université de Lorraine (2014), p. s.v. hasart
12. ^ a b c d e 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. 4:429
13. ^ a b c d Tobler, Adolf; Lommatzsch, Erhard (1925–2002), Altfranzösisches Wörterbuch, 11 vols., Berlin / Wiesbaden / Stuttgart: Weidmann / Steiner, p. 4:946
14. ^ 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
15. ^ 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. RenN_A
16. ^ 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. RenN_B
17. ^ Rainsford, Thomas, CorMétAF: lemmatised extracts of Old and Middle French verse and prose (990–1500), github (texts by siglum), p. CoincyI1K
18. ^ 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)
19. ^ a b Dictionnaire du Moyen Français, version 2015 (DMF 2015), ATILF – CNRS & Université de Lorraine, atilf.fr/dmf, p. s.v. hasard
20. ^ 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. hasart