honeste

Forms

honeste^[1]

• oneste, honneste, honest, onest^[1][2]
• honestre^[3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin honestus (“honoured, respectable; honourable”),^{[1][4][5][6][7]} formed in Latin from honōs (“honour”) with the suffix -tus.^[8] The DHLF explains it from an inflection of the noun with the stem honer-.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the prose prologue to the Vie de saint Alexis, which the TLFi dates to the middle of the 11th century and the DEAF to about 1090: la sue juvente fut honeste e spiritel “his youth was honourable and spiritual”.^[4][10][11] The sense is “honourable, just”.^[4][9]

Semantic evolution

In the 12th century the adjective came to mean “fitting, seemly” (about 1160) and, of people, “noble, worthy of esteem” (1174–1176).^[9][4] Gormont et Isembart uses it of a mighty god, and other texts of a large army.^[3] From about 1280 it meant “courteous, civil”.^[4]

In the 15th century honnestes femmes were chaste women, and in the 16th century the honnête homme became the ideal of polite society.^[4][9] The modern word is French honnête, whose sense of a man who respects others' property is from Molière (1669).^[4]

Timeline

• c. 1090 – honeste in the prose prologue to the Vie de saint Alexis (mid-11th century by the TLFi's dating).^[10][4][11]
• 1100–1150 – honeste of a god in Gormont et Isembart.^[12][3]
• 1121–1125 – the first Anglo-Norman citation in the AND.^[2]
• c. 1160 – “seemly, considerable” in the Moniage Guillaume.^[4]
• 1174–1176 – “noble, worthy of esteem” in Guernes de Pont-Sainte-Maxence's Saint Thomas.^[4]
• c. 1280 – “courteous” in Girart d'Amiens's Escanor.^[4]

Meanings

Adjective

1. honourable, just, virtuous, upright.^[2][4]
2. noble, worthy of esteem; powerful.^[4][3]
3. fitting, seemly, decent.^[2][3]
4. (of things) considerable, fine, sumptuous.^[2][3]
5. (of a woman) chaste.^[2]
6. courteous, civil.^[4]

Anglo-Norman

The AND heads the adjective honest, first cites it from 1121–1125, and lists honeste, honneste and onest.^[2] Its insular senses include frank and open, chaste, and, of a feast, magnificent.^[2] Middle English honeste comes from Old French and gave the English honest, recorded from about 1300.^[13][14]

Word family

• honesté
• honestement
• honesteté

Descendants

• Middle French honeste (→ French honnête)^[1]
• Norman honnête^[1]
• Middle English honeste (borrowed; → English honest, Scots honest)^[1]

Usage notes

Tobler–Lommatzsch and the DEAF head the word oneste, Godefroy honeste, the AND honest and the DMF honneste.^{[15][10][16][2][17]} Wiktionary also has honeste as a noun “honesty”, a form of honesté.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–), p. s.v. honest
3. ^ a b c d e f 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. oneste
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n 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. ^ Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France, p. 363
6. ^ Gamillscheg, Ernst (1966–1969), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der französischen Sprache, 2nd, fully revised ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 559
7. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 4:461
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c d Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. honnête
10. ^ a b c 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. oneste
11. ^ a b Rainsford, Thomas (2025), Old Gallo-Romance Corpus, github (the earliest Gallo-Romance texts, lemmatised; texts by siglum), p. AlexisProl
12. ^ Rainsford, Thomas, CorMétAF: lemmatised extracts of Old and Middle French verse and prose (990–1500), github (texts by siglum), p. GormB
13. ^ 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)
14. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
15. ^ Tobler, Adolf; Lommatzsch, Erhard (1925–2002), Altfranzösisches Wörterbuch, 11 vols., Berlin / Wiesbaden / Stuttgart: Weidmann / Steiner, p. 6:1113
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. 4:489
17. ^ Dictionnaire du Moyen Français, version 2015 (DMF 2015), ATILF – CNRS & Université de Lorraine, atilf.fr/dmf, p. s.v. honnête