poulser

Forms

poulser v.^[1][2]

• pousser, pulser^[3][4][5]

Tobler–Lommatzsch and the DEAF head the verb pousser and the AND pulser.^[3][4][5] Middle French texts have pousser, poulser, poulce and posse.^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin pulsō (“to beat, strike, push”).^[6][4][7][8] The Latin verb is a frequentative of pellō (“to drive, strike”),^[9][10] and the DHLF lists its senses as “to jostle, knock”, “to shake”, “to strike”, “to drive away” and, late, “to prosecute”.^[7] Its Romance cognates include Old Occitan polsar, Spanish pujar and Portuguese puxar.^[8]

Gamillscheg dates the French verb only to the 15th century and, finding it not native in the north proper, takes it for a loan from the Occitan verb or from the dialects on the southern edge of the north,^[11] but the DEAF and Tobler–Lommatzsch record it from the Roman de Thèbes, about 1160.^[4][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the Roman de Thèbes, a Poitevin romance of about 1160.^[4][12] The DHLF says the oldest uses are intransitive: “to exert a pressure” from about 1175, and, of a horse, “to pant, breathe hard”.^[7] The DEAF's next record is Benoît de Sainte-Maure's Chronique des ducs de Normandie, about 1174.^[4][13]

Semantic evolution

The sense “to pant” of a horse, also said of a person from 1306, died out but lives on in the derivatives French pousse and French poussif.^[7] The transitive use, “to press on a thing to move it”, appears only at the end of the 14th century, in Froissart,^[14][7] and the sense “to grow”, of a plant, only in 1660.^[7] In England the verb was used of the wind, “to beat, blow forward”.^[5]

Timeline

• c. 1160 – in the Roman de Thèbes.^[4][12]
• c. 1174 – in Benoît de Sainte-Maure's Chronique des ducs de Normandie.^[4][13]
• c. 1185 – pousant in the Roman d'Alexandre.^[15]
• c. 1230 – pulser, of the wind, in the earliest Anglo-Norman record the AND cites.^[5]
• 1306 – “to pant”, said of a person.^[7]
• late 14th century – transitive “to push a thing to move it” in Froissart's Chroniques.^[14]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive) to press, exert a pressure.^[6][7]
2. (intransitive, of a horse) to pant, breathe hard.^[7]
3. (of the wind) to beat, blow forward.^[5]
4. to push, shove a thing to move it.^[14][16]

Anglo-Norman

The AND heads the insular verb pulser and first cites it about 1230, of the wind beating or blowing forward.^[5] Middle English pushen, whence push, is from the Old French verb.^[17][18]

Descendants

• Middle French pousser (→ French pousser)^[19][14]
• Middle English pushen (borrowed; → English push)^[17][18]

Usage notes

Tobler–Lommatzsch, the DEAF and the DMF head the word pousser, the AND pulser;^{[3][4][19][5]} Etymonline cites it as poulser.^[18]

References

1. ^ a b ATILF (2017), LGeRM: lexique morphologique du moyen français, version 2.0.0, Nancy: ATILF – CNRS & Université de Lorraine, ORTOLANG (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 FR), p. s.v. pousser
2. ^ 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
3. ^ a b c d Tobler, Adolf; Lommatzsch, Erhard (1925–2002), Altfranzösisches Wörterbuch, 11 vols., Berlin / Wiesbaden / Stuttgart: Weidmann / Steiner, p. 7:1671
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. pousser
5. ^ a b c d e f g Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–), p. s.v. pulser
6. ^ a b Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 9:552
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. pousser
8. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6837
9. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. pulsō
11. ^ Gamillscheg, Ernst (1966–1969), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der französischen Sprache, 2nd, fully revised ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 766
12. ^ 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. ThebesC
13. ^ 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. BenDucF
14. ^ a b c d 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
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. AlexArsL
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. 10:396
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 c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
19. ^ a b Dictionnaire du Moyen Français, version 2015 (DMF 2015), ATILF – CNRS & Université de Lorraine, atilf.fr/dmf, p. s.v. pousser