Etymologically
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disgratia

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Forms

disgrātia f (genitive disgrātiae); first declension[1][2] The spelling disgracia appears in a letter of 1510.[3]

Etymology

It is from Latin dis- + grātia (“favour, grace”).[1] Du Cange instead took it from the French word disgrâce,[4] and his continuator compares Italian disgrazia for the sense of illness.[4] Etymonline traces the French word to this Italian noun, meaning “misfortune, deformity”, formed from dis- and grazia (“grace”).[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Du Cange's earliest dated example is a charter of 1252 of William, King of the Romans, which warns that whoever acts against it will incur the disfavour of the king's highness.[4]

Semantic evolution

Niermeyer gives three medieval senses: disfavour, shame or blemish, and infirmity or disease.[6] Du Cange explains it as offence or misfortune: a chronicler describes the land as sick with the disgratia of so much unbelief before Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, visited it, and a letter of Pope Innocent VI speaks of a kingdom weakened, like a sick man, by what remained of a past misfortune.[4] In the Acts of Saint Paris it is used of illness, of anyone held by a febrilis disgratia, a feverish illness.[4]

Later it is found in the sense of disfavour or resentment in Polish documents of 1479 and 1530,[2] and in a letter of 1510 whose writer does not know whether he stands in someone's grace or disgrace.[3] English borrowed disgrace from French in the 1580s.[5]

Timeline

  • 1252 – A charter of William, King of the Romans, threatens offenders with the king's disfavour.[4]
  • 1479 – A Polish letter uses it for disfavour.[2]
  • 1510 – A letter in the Amerbach correspondence sets gracia against disgracia.[3]
  • 1580s – English takes disgrace from French disgrace, itself from Italian disgrazia.[5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (Medieval Latin) Disfavour, displeasure of a superior.[6][4][2][3]
  2. (Medieval Latin) Shame, disgrace, blemish.[6]
  3. (Medieval Latin) Misfortune.[4]
  4. (Medieval Latin) Infirmity, illness.[6][4]

References

  1. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  2. ^ a b c d Lexicon mediae et infimae Latinitatis Polonorum (1953–), Kraków: Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN; electronic ed. elexicon.scriptores.pl
  3. ^ a b c d Ramminger, Johann, Neulateinische Wortliste: Ein Wörterbuch des Lateinischen von Petrarca bis 1700, www.neulatein.de
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i du Cange, Charles du Fresne, et al. (1883–1887), Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, augmented ed. by Léopold Favre, Niort: L. Favre
  5. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  6. ^ a b c d Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill