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purtraire

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Etymology and origin of the Old French word purtraire

Confidence
Established
Formation
Derivation
First attested
1155 Wace, Roman de Brut More words from the 12th century
Ultimate origin
Latin trahō

Forms

purtraire (present participle purtraiant; past participle purtrait; first-person singular present purtrai)[1]

Chrétien de Troyes has the participles portraite, portreite and portret;[3] Middle French texts mostly write pourtraire.[4]

Etymology

It is formed from Old French por- + traire (“to draw”).[1][5] The verb traire continues Latin trahō (“to drag, draw”),[6][7] and the prefix comes from prō-.[8] Latin prōtrahō meant “to draw forth” and in Medieval Latin also “to draw, paint”.[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is Wace's Roman de Brut, which the TLFi dates 1154, where the past participle purtrait means “drawn, depicted”.[5] The AND's first citation is of 1155.[2] The Eneas, about 1160, has portraira.[9][10]

Semantic evolution

Chrétien de Troyes uses the verb of works of art, “to make, fashion”, of a picture or a tapestry, “to represent”, and, in Cligès, for describing in words.[3][5] Greimas adds “to resemble” (in the Roman de la Rose), “to finish”, and the legal senses “to bring to trial, accuse” and “to convict”.[9] In Middle French the usual form was pourtraire.[4] The modern language keeps French portraire,[5] and, as Gamillscheg notes, above all its past participle used as a noun.[11]

Timeline

  • 1154–1155 – purtrait “depicted” in Wace's Roman de Brut.[5][2]
  • c. 1160 – in the Eneas.[9]
  • c. 1165 – portrere and portraire in Narcisus.[12][13]
  • c. 1170 – portreite in Chrétien de Troyes's Erec et Enide.[3]
  • 1176 – portraire “to describe” in Cligès.[5]
  • c. 1216 – pourtraire “to represent” in Robert de Clari.[5]

Meanings

Verb

  1. to portray, depict in drawing, painting, embroidery or tapestry.[2][3]
  2. to portray in words, describe.[2][3]
  3. to shape, fashion a work.[3][2]
  4. to adorn, decorate.[3][2]
  5. to resemble.[9]
  6. (law) to bring to trial, accuse.[9][2]

Anglo-Norman

The AND heads the word purtraire, first cites it from 1155, and lists portraire, pourtraire, purtreire, purtrere and purtrayer.[2] Insular senses include “to plan, prepare” and “to engrave in one's heart”.[2] Middle English portraien, whence portray, comes from the continental and the Anglo-Norman forms.[14][8]

Descendants

  • Middle French portraire (→ French portraire)[15][5]
  • Middle English portraien (borrowed; → English portray)[14][8]
  • traire

Usage notes

Wiktionary heads the word by its Anglo-Norman form purtraire, as does the AND;[1][2] Tobler–Lommatzsch, Godefroy, the DÉCT and the DMF head it portraire.[3]

References

  1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–), p. s.v. purtraire
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Dictionnaire électronique de Chrétien de Troyes (DÉCT), LFA / Université d'Ottawa – ATILF, CNRS / Université de Lorraine (2014), p. s.v. portraire
  4. ^ 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. portraire
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 13/2:181
  7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 8841
  8. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  9. ^ a b c d e 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. portraire
  10. ^ Penn Parsed Corpus of Historical French, version 1.0, University of Pennsylvania & University of Ottawa (texts by file name), p. 1155-eneas1-bfm-r
  11. ^ Gamillscheg, Ernst (1966–1969), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der französischen Sprache, 2nd, fully revised ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 757
  12. ^ 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. NarcisusP_A
  13. ^ 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. NarcisusP_B
  14. ^ 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)
  15. ^ Dictionnaire du Moyen Français, version 2015 (DMF 2015), ATILF – CNRS & Université de Lorraine, atilf.fr/dmf, p. s.v. portraire
Cite this entry

“Purtraire.” Etymologically, 13 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/fro/purtraire. Accessed 13 Nov. 2026.

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