thème French · revision 15983

+ {{infobox|confidence=established|formation=borrowing|attested=c. 1240, tesme|origins=grc τίθημι}}

+

+ ==Pronunciation==

+ * IPA: /tɛm/^(Wiktionary)

+

+ ==Forms==

+ '''thème''' ''m'' (plural thèmes)^(Wiktionary)

+ ''Tesme'' (about 1240), still recorded in 16th-century dictionaries, ''theme'' in Jean de Meun (1269–1278); ''thieume'' (1372); ''thème'' in the Académie from 1740.^(TLFi)^(DHLF 1992)

+

+ ==Etymology==

+ It is a learned borrowing from [[la|thema|t=subject, proposition; horoscope]], a rhetorical term,^(TLFi)^(DHLF 1992)^(Bloch & Wartburg 1989)^(FEW|13/1, 303a) from [[grc|θέμα|tr=théma|t=what is placed; subject of a speech]], from [[m|grc|τίθημι|tr=títhēmi|t=to put, place]] (see [[thèse]]).^(DHLF 1992)^(TLFi) The Greek word also named a deposit of money, the root of a word and the position of the stars at a birth.^(DHLF 1992)

+

+ ==Earliest recorded meaning==

+ A life of Saint Francis (about 1240) has ''tesme'' for the subject or proposition developed in a speech or work;^(TLFi)^(DHLF 1992) Jean de Meun uses ''theme'' in the ''Roman de la Rose''.^(TLFi)^(Littré 1873)

+

+ ==Semantic evolution==

+ In 1372 the ''thème'' was the Bible text quoted at the start of a sermon and commented on, competing with ''texte''.^(TLFi)^(DHLF 1992) In 1580 Montaigne uses it for a schoolboy's composition on a set subject, whence ''fort en thème'' (1852);^(TLFi)^(DHLF 1992) Furetière (1690) has it for any passage given for translation, and the Académie (1718) for translation into a foreign language, as opposed to ''version''.^(TLFi)^(DHLF 1992)

+

+ Grammarians used it for the first person of a Greek verb (1655), then for the stem of a word (1765, 1842).^(TLFi)^(DHLF 1992) Astrologers took it up again in ''thème céleste'' (1690), now ''thème astral''.^(TLFi)^(DHLF 1992) In music it named a melodic subject (''théma'', 1807, ''thème'', Stendhal, 1814), and in the 20th century it became a term of military tactics (1935), literary criticism and linguistics (as opposed to ''propos'', 1961).^(BHVF)^(TLFi)^(DHLF 1992)

+

+ ==Timeline==

+ * c. 1240 – ''Tesme'' “subject”.^(TLFi)

+ * 1269–1278 – ''Theme'' in Jean de Meun.^(TLFi)

+ * 1372 – The text of a sermon.^(TLFi)

+ * 1580 – A school composition, in Montaigne.^(TLFi)

+ * 1655 – A grammatical term, in Lancelot.^(TLFi)

+ * 1690 – ''Thème céleste''; a translation exercise, in Furetière.^(TLFi)

+ * 1718 – Translation into a foreign language.^(TLFi)

+ * 1814 – A musical theme, in Stendhal.^(TLFi)

+

+ ==Meanings==

+ ===Noun===

+ # A [[m|en|theme]], subject, topic: ''le thème d'un roman'', ''un thème de réflexion''.^(Petit Robert 2007)^(Wiktionary)

+ # ''(music)'' A theme, subject.^(Wiktionary)^(Larousse)

+ # A translation into a foreign language (as opposed to ''version''): ''thème latin'', ''fort en thème'': swot.^(Wiktionary)^(Larousse)

+ # ''(grammar)'' A stem.^(Wiktionary)^(DHLF 1992)

+ # ''(linguistics)'' The theme (as opposed to the rheme).^(Wiktionary)^(TLFi)

+ # ''(astrology)'' ''Thème astral'': a birth chart.^(Wiktionary)^(DHLF 1992)

+

+ ==Word family==

+ * [[thématique]]

+

+ ==Related words==

+ * [[thèse]]

+ * [[grc|θέμα|tr=théma]]

+ * [[en|theme]]

+

+ ==Usage notes==

+ A second ''thème'' (Fontenelle, 1726), from Byzantine Greek ''thema'', is the term of history for a military and administrative district of the Byzantine Empire.^(DHLF 1992)^(Grand Robert 2005)^(Larousse)

+

+ ==References==

+ {{reflist}}