troter

Forms

troter (present participle trotant)^[1][2]

• trotter, trother, throter^[3]

The BFM and DMF corpora also have trocter and torter.^[4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Frankish *trottōn (“to run”),^[5][6][7] an intensive verb of the family of Old High German tretan (“to go, walk”), Old English tredan and German treten (“to tread”).^[6] The Frankish form is inferred from Middle High German trotten (“to run”).^[6][7] Wiktionary traces it to Proto-Germanic *truttōną (“to tread, trample, trot”), an iterative of *trudaną (“to tread”).^[8] Bloch and Wartburg date the loan after the earliest West Germanic borrowings, since the simple verb had a ⟨d⟩ in that period.^[5] The REW gives the cognates Italian trottare, Old Occitan trotar, Catalan trotar, Spanish trotar and Portuguese trotar.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The AND's first citation is from the second quarter of the 12th century, in Anglo-Norman.^[3] On the continent the first record is in the Roman d'Eneas, about 1160, where the verb is used of making a horse trot with an obscene double meaning.^[7][10] The DHLF dates the first record to about 1130.^[6]

Semantic evolution

Chrétien de Troyes uses only the present participle, of a poor horse that cannot go faster than a trot: Tantost messire Gauvains monte Sor le roncin trotant “at once my lord Gawain mounts the trotting nag”.^[2] The Roman de Renart, about 1178, says it of people walking far on foot,^[7] and the Lai du trot of the early 13th century of a rider.^[7][6] The chanson de geste Élie de Saint-Gilles has Puis que jel voi troter “since I see him trot” of a horse.^[11] The deverbal noun trot is recorded from about 1155.^[6]

In Middle French trotter was said of the horse and its rider,^[12] and the reflexive se trotter “to run off” is in Villon in 1456.^[7] The modern verb is French trotter.^[7]

Timeline

• 1125–1150 – the first Anglo-Norman citation in the AND.^[3]
• 1148 – the derived noun “trotter”, a kind of horse.^[3]
• c. 1160 – in the Roman d'Eneas.^[7][10]
• c. 1178 – of people walking far, in the Roman de Renart.^[7]
• 1181–1190 – trotant of a horse in Chrétien's Conte du Graal.^[7][2]
• 1456 – se trotter “to run off” in Villon.^[7]

Meanings

Verb

1. (of a horse or rider) to trot, go at a gait between a walk and a canter.^[3][2][7]
2. (of people) to walk briskly or far on foot; to hurry.^[7][3]
3. to move daintily, prance.^[3]
4. (obscene) used with a sexual double meaning.^[7][10]
5. (present participle as adjective) trotant, trotting, able only to trot.^[2][3]

Anglo-Norman

The AND heads the verb troter, with the spellings trotter, trother and throter, and cites it from the second quarter of the 12th century in the senses to trot, to walk briskly, to rush towards and to prance.^[3] A second article covers the derived noun for a horse bred for the trot, first cited 1148, also used as a surname.^[3] The MED derives the Middle English verb trotten from troter,^[13] the source of the English verb trot.^[14]

Word family

• trot
• trotier

Descendants

• Middle French trotter (→ French trotter)^[12][7]
• Middle English trotten (borrowed; → English trot)^[13][14]

Usage notes

Tobler–Lommatzsch, Godefroy, the DÉCT and the AND all head the word troter,^[2][3] the DMF trotter.^[12]

References

1. ^ Tobler, Adolf; Lommatzsch, Erhard (1925–2002), Altfranzösisches Wörterbuch, 11 vols., Berlin / Wiesbaden / Stuttgart: Weidmann / Steiner, p. 10:690
2. ^ a b c d e f Dictionnaire électronique de Chrétien de Troyes (DÉCT), LFA / Université d'Ottawa – ATILF, CNRS / Université de Lorraine (2014), p. s.v. troter
3. ^ 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. troter
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 Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France, p. 693
6. ^ a b c d e f Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. trotter
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o 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
8. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 8939
10. ^ 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. troter
11. ^ Wiktionnaire (French Wiktionary), fr.wiktionary.org
12. ^ a b c Dictionnaire du Moyen Français, version 2015 (DMF 2015), ATILF – CNRS & Université de Lorraine, atilf.fr/dmf, p. s.v. trotter
13. ^ 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)
14. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com