ploiier

Forms

ploiier (present participle ploiant; past participle ploiié; first-person singular present pli, ploi)^[1]

• pleier, ploier, plier, ployer, pliier, pleiier, pleer, plaier, pleyer, plyer^[2][3][4]

The oldest form is pleier, ploier follows in the 12th century and ployer about 1360.^[5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin plicō (“to fold”).^[1][6][7][8] The DHLF calls the Latin verb an intensive formed on the compound element -plicō of verbs such as explicō, beside plectō (“to plait”).^[5] Its Romance cognates include Italian piegare, Romanian pleca (“to leave”), Old Occitan plegar and Portuguese chegar;^[9] Spanish llegar (“to arrive”) belongs with them too.^[8]

The Latin verb gave pleier, the form of the Eulalie, and then ploier.^[5][10] The form plier is an analogical remake: the verbs that became French nier and prier had a stressed stem in /i/ and an unstressed one in /ei/ or /oi/, and on their model the verb first took stressed forms in /i/ about 1165, then, from the early 13th century, forms stressed on the ending such as the infinitive.^[8][10] Modern French has both plier and ployer from it.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the Séquence de sainte Eulalie, of about 900 in Walloon territory, where pleier means to force someone to give way.^[11][10] The TLFi dates the poem 881.^[10]

Semantic evolution

The Roland already uses the verb for folding a supple thing over on itself, and about 1150 the Charroi de Nîmes for folding together the parts of a jointed object.^[10] Intransitive uses followed: "to give way, weaken" about 1140 in Gaimar's history of the English, and "to bend, bow" in Wace's Roman de Rou.^[10] In Chrétien de Troyes the verb means to bend or twist a thing, to bow from weakness, and to fall back before an opponent.^[3] Tobler–Lommatzsch adds a legal gesture, folding one's glove or gage.^[12]

In documents of 1339 and 1387 ploier l'amende meant "to pay the fine", which the DMF explains as submitting to the payment.^[13][14]

Timeline

• c. 900 – pleier in the Séquence de sainte Eulalie (881 in the TLFi's dating).^[11][10]
• c. 1100 – pleiet "folded" in the Chanson de Roland.^[15][10]
• 1113–1119 – first Anglo-Norman record.^[2]
• c. 1140 – intransitive "to give way" in Gaimar.^[10]
• c. 1165 – the stressed form plie.^[10]
• early 13th century – the infinitive plier.^[10]
• 1339 – ploier l'amende "to pay the fine" at Laon.^[14][13]
• c. 1360 – the spelling ployer.^[5]

Meanings

Verb

1. to fold (cloth, a letter), furl, pleat.^[2][12][16]
2. to bend, bow, twist (something).^[3][2]
3. to force (someone) to yield.^[10]
4. (intransitive) to bend, give way; to fall back before an opponent.^[3][12]
5. (law) to fold one's glove or gage as a pledge.^[12]
6. (Anglo-Norman) to wager; to knot, tie.^[2]
7. ploier l'amende, to pay the fine.^[14][13]

Anglo-Norman

The AND heads the verb plier and first cites it from 1113–19, with the spellings plaer, plaier, pleer, pleier, pleyer, ploier and plyer.^[2] Besides folding and bending, insular texts use it for closing a book, for relaxing an authority, for tying a knot and for laying a wager.^[2] Middle English took the verb as plien "to bend, fold; to be flexible", which the MED derives from ploiier, pliier, pleier and plaier;^[17] it is the English verb ply "to bend, yield".^[18]

Word family

• desploiier
• reploier
• ploi

Descendants

• Middle French plier, ployer (→ French plier, French ployer)^[1][16]
• Champenois ployer^[1]
• Middle English plien (borrowed; → English ply)^[17][18]

Usage notes

Each dictionary heads the verb its own way: Tobler–Lommatzsch and the DÉCT ploiier, Foerster pliier, Godefroy's Complément pleiier, the AND plier, and the DMF plier and ployer.^[3][16]

References

1. ^ a b c d 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. plier
3. ^ a b c d e Dictionnaire électronique de Chrétien de Troyes (DÉCT), LFA / Université d'Ottawa – ATILF, CNRS / Université de Lorraine (2014), p. s.v. ploiier
4. ^ 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
5. ^ a b c d e Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. ployer
6. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 9:65
7. ^ Gamillscheg, Ernst (1966–1969), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der französischen Sprache, 2nd, fully revised ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 751
8. ^ a b c Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France, p. 533
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6601
10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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
11. ^ a b Rainsford, Thomas (2025), Old Gallo-Romance Corpus, github (the earliest Gallo-Romance texts, lemmatised; texts by siglum), p. EulalieB
12. ^ a b c d Tobler, Adolf; Lommatzsch, Erhard (1925–2002), Altfranzösisches Wörterbuch, 11 vols., Berlin / Wiesbaden / Stuttgart: Weidmann / Steiner, p. 7:1166
13. ^ a b c Dictionnaire du Moyen Français, version 2015 (DMF 2015), ATILF – CNRS & Université de Lorraine, atilf.fr/dmf, p. s.v. ployer
14. ^ a b c 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. 6:221
15. ^ UD Old French PROFITEROLE and UD Middle French PROFITEROLE treebanks, Universal Dependencies (from the SRCMF and the Base de français médiéval; texts by DEAF siglum), p. RolS
16. ^ a b c Dictionnaire du Moyen Français, version 2015 (DMF 2015), ATILF – CNRS & Université de Lorraine, atilf.fr/dmf, p. s.v. plier
17. ^ 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)
18. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com