honesté

Forms

honesté f (oblique plural honestez)^[1]

• onesté, honestet, onesteit, honesteit, honnesté^[1][2][3][4]

honestet is the spelling of the Eulalie, onesteit that of the Oxford version of the Vie de saint Alexis.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin honestās (“honour, respectability”), from its accusative honestātem.^[5][1][6] The Latin noun is formed from honestus (“honourable”) with the suffix -tās,^[7] and the adjective comes from honōs (“honour”).^[7][8]

The related adjective honeste was borrowed from Latin too, in the 11th century.^[8][9] The longer honesteté, recorded from about 1265, is a remaking of the headword after that adjective and the source of French honnêteté.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the Séquence de sainte Eulalie, which the DEAF bibliography dates to about 900 and the TLFi to about 881; the saint is said there to have died with great honour, honestet.^[10][2][5] The TLFi glosses this first use as dignity or nobility.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The FEW gives the word the sense of honour and honourable standing from the Eulalie to the 14th century, of pomp or splendour in the 13th and 14th, and of probity from the 12th to the 14th.^[6][11] In Philippe de Thaon's Bestiaire it is one of the virtues, named with charity, faith, humility and chastity.^[12] The AND has honesty, uprightness and virtue, an honourable estate, propriety, decency and decorum.^[13] Middle French added modesty and an act of courtesy,^[4] but the longer honesteté replaced it, and honnêteté has meant probity since 1538.^[11]

Timeline

• c. 900 – honestet in the Séquence de sainte Eulalie (about 881 by the TLFi).^[10][2][5]
• 1121–1135 – the earliest Anglo-Norman citation in the AND.^[13]
• c. 1128 – onesté in Philippe de Thaon's Bestiaire.^[14][12]
• early 13th century – onesteit in the Oxford Vie de saint Alexis.^[3]
• c. 1265 – the longer honesteté, in Brunetto Latini's Trésor.^[5]
• early 14th century – English honesty, “splendour, honour”.^[15]
• 1372 – honnesté in Foulechat's translation of the Policraticus.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. honour, honourable standing; dignity.^[16][5][13]
2. honesty, uprightness, virtue.^[13][1]
3. propriety, decency, decorum; modesty.^[13][12][4]
4. an honourable act; an act of courtesy.^[16][4]
5. pomp, splendour.^[6]

Anglo-Norman

The AND heads the word honesté and first cites it from 1121–35; it gives honesty, uprightness and virtue, an honourable estate, propriety and decorum, integrity and honour, and a phrase for leading an honourable, virtuous life.^[13] The AND also has honesteté, first cited in the first half of the 13th century.^[17] Etymonline derives the English word honesty, recorded from the early 14th century, from Old French oneste and honesté,^[15] and the FEW notes that the word survives in it.^[11]

Descendants

• Middle French honnesté^[4]
• Middle English honestee (borrowed; → English honesty)^[1][15]

Related words

• honeste
• honesteté

Usage notes

Tobler–Lommatzsch and Greimas head the word onesté, Godefroy and the AND honesté, the DMF honnesté.^{[12][16][13][4]} Wiktionary's page also lists honesté as a spelling of the adjective honeste, which belongs to that word.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Rainsford, Thomas (2025), Old Gallo-Romance Corpus, github (the earliest Gallo-Romance texts, lemmatised; texts by siglum), p. EulalieB
3. ^ a b c Rainsford, Thomas, CorMétAF: lemmatised extracts of Old and Middle French verse and prose (990–1500), github (texts by siglum), p. AlexisAlOS
4. ^ a b c d e f g Dictionnaire du Moyen Français, version 2015 (DMF 2015), ATILF – CNRS & Université de Lorraine, atilf.fr/dmf, p. s.v. honnesté
5. ^ a b c d e f g 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. ^ a b c Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 4:461
7. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. honnête
9. ^ Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France, p. 363
10. ^ 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. EulalieB
11. ^ a b c Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 4:462
12. ^ a b c d Tobler, Adolf; Lommatzsch, Erhard (1925–2002), Altfranzösisches Wörterbuch, 11 vols., Berlin / Wiesbaden / Stuttgart: Weidmann / Steiner, p. 6:1115
13. ^ a b c d e f g Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–), p. s.v. honesté
14. ^ Penn Parsed Corpus of Historical French, version 1.0, University of Pennsylvania & University of Ottawa (texts by file name), p. 1128-bestiaire-bfm-r
15. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
16. ^ a b c 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. onesté
17. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–), p. s.v. honesteté