male

Forms

male f (oblique plural males)^[1]

• malle, malhe, maule^[2][3]

The spelling malle appears about 1200 and soon became the usual one.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Frankish *malha (“leather bag, travelling bag”).^[2][5][6][3] The Frankish word is reconstructed from Old High German malaha (“bag, satchel”) and Middle Dutch male (“travelling bag, chest, belly of an animal”), whose modern form is Dutch maal;^[3][4] the TLFi adds Old English malha.^[3] Wiktionary takes the word through Medieval Latin mala,^[1] which Niermeyer glosses "bag" and calls Germanic.^[7] Etymonline traces the Germanic word to Proto-Germanic *malhō and further to a Proto-Indo-European *molko- (“skin, bag”),^[8] a link Köbler gives only with a question mark.^[9]

The Old Occitan word mala "chest, travelling bag" is recorded from the 13th century,^[2] and Wiktionary lists Spanish mala, Portuguese mala and Catalan mala as borrowings.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the French glosses of Rashi's Talmud commentaries, from the end of the 11th century, where male is a leather bag.^[10][3] Greimas dates the word to the beginning of the 12th century, in the Voyage de Charlemagne,^[11] where the pilgrims font pleines les males entre or fin et argent "fill the bags with fine gold and silver".^[12]

Semantic evolution

From a bag of leather the word passed to a chest of wood or leather for carrying one's belongings on a journey, recorded from the Couronnement de Louis of about 1135,^[3][13] and in the FEW from Wace on.^[2] The FEW also records a figurative Old French sense "belly".^[2]

In Middle French malle is the travelling chest of the royal accounts and of Froissart.^[14] In 1569 it became the courier's bag for letters,^[2][4] and later the malle-poste (1793), while the modern French malle is a trunk.^[4][3]

Timeline

• 1085–1100 – male "leather bag" in Rashi's French glosses.^[10][3]
• early 12th century – males in the Voyage de Charlemagne.^[11][12]
• c. 1135 – a travelling chest, in the Couronnement de Louis.^[3][13]
• 12th century – the first Anglo-Norman record cited by the AND.^[15]
• c. 1200 – the spelling malle in Aiol.^[3]
• 1569 – Middle French malle, the courier's bag for letters.^[2][4]

Meanings

Noun

1. a bag or pack, especially of leather.^[15][3][2]
2. a chest or trunk of wood or leather for carrying belongings when travelling.^[13][3][2]
3. (figurative) the belly.^[2]

Anglo-Norman

The AND heads the word male 1, "pack, bag", first cites it from the 12th century and records the spellings malle, maele and meole.^[15] Middle English took it as male, a travelling bag, and the English word mail kept that sense before it came to mean a bag of letters in the 1650s and then the post itself.^[8]

Descendants

• Middle French malle (→ French malle)^[1]
• Gallo mol^[1]
• Walloon male^[1]
• Middle English male (borrowed; → English mail)^[8]
• Spanish mala (borrowed)^[1]
• Portuguese mala (borrowed)^[1]
• Catalan mala (borrowed)^[1]

Usage notes

Tobler–Lommatzsch heads the word male 2, the DEAF male2 and the AND male 1, while the DMF and the TLFi use the modern malle.^{[13][10][15][14]} Tobler–Lommatzsch's male 1 "jaw" is a borrowing of Latin mala recorded in the Bestiaire of Gervaise,^[16] and male is also the feminine of the adjective mal "bad".^[17][18]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 16:508
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m 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
4. ^ a b c d e Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. malle
5. ^ Gamillscheg, Ernst (1966–1969), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der französischen Sprache, 2nd, fully revised ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 628
6. ^ Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France, p. 425
7. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. mala
8. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. *malha
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. male2
11. ^ 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. male
12. ^ a b 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. 10:110
13. ^ a b c d Tobler, Adolf; Lommatzsch, Erhard (1925–2002), Altfranzösisches Wörterbuch, 11 vols., Berlin / Wiesbaden / Stuttgart: Weidmann / Steiner, p. 5:975
14. ^ a b Dictionnaire du Moyen Français, version 2015 (DMF 2015), ATILF – CNRS & Université de Lorraine, atilf.fr/dmf, p. s.v. malle
15. ^ a b c d Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–), p. s.v. male
16. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 6/1:78
17. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–), p. s.v. mal
18. ^ Dictionnaire électronique de Chrétien de Troyes (DÉCT), LFA / Université d'Ottawa – ATILF, CNRS / Université de Lorraine (2014), p. s.v. mal