marron French · revision 16131

+ French has two main words spelled ''marron'': the chestnut, borrowed from Italian, and the runaway slave, a word of the French West Indies taken from Spanish.^(Grand Robert 2005)^(Petit Robert 2007)^(DHLF 1992)

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+ {{homograph|1|chestnut}}

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+ {{infobox|confidence=established|formation=borrowing|attested=1526, Claude Gruget}}

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+ ==Pronunciation==

+ * IPA: /ma.ʁɔ̃/^(Wiktionary)

+

+ ==Forms==

+ '''marron''' ''m'' (plural marrons)^(Wiktionary)

+ Often written ''maron'' before the 19th century.^(DHLF 1992)

+

+ ==Etymology==

+ The chestnut is [[bor|it|marrone|t=large edible chestnut]], recorded in Italian from the early 14th century;^(TLFi) Medieval Latin had [[m|la-med|marro]] in a document from Como of 1176.^(TLFi)^(DHLF 1992) The Italian word is probably derived from a pre-Roman root meaning “stone, rock”, found from Italy to Portugal and especially in the Alps and the Pyrenees, the root also behind [[marelle]].^(TLFi)^(DHLF 1992)^(Grand Robert 2005) The Grand Robert and Larousse call ''marron'' a word of the Lyon region, and the TLFi thinks it probably entered French through that area, where the large chestnuts were sold.^(Grand Robert 2005)^(Larousse)^(TLFi) Littré, writing earlier, held the further origin of the Italian word to be unknown.^(Littré 1873)

+

+ ==Earliest recorded meaning==

+ It is first recorded in 1526, in Claude Gruget's translation of Pedro Mexía's ''Diverses leçons'', for the fruit of the [[m|en|chestnut]] tree.^(TLFi)^(DHLF 1992) Olivier de Serres, in the 16th century, wrote that the chestnuts called ''marrons'' at Lyon were known all over France through the trade in them.^(Littré 1873)

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+ ==Semantic evolution==

+ The phrase ''tirer les marrons du feu'' “to pull the chestnuts out of the fire”, at first completed by ''avec la patte du chat'' “with the cat's paw” (1640), was made popular by La Fontaine's fable ''Le Singe et le Chat''; it means to take risks for someone else's profit.^(DHLF 1992)^(TLFi) By analogy the word was given to the inedible seed of a quite different tree, the ''marron d'Inde'' or [[m|en|horse chestnut]] (1718).^(DHLF 1992)^(TLFi)

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+ From ''couleur de maron'' (1706) came the noun and adjective of colour, now the everyday French word for [[m|en|brown]]; it is found as early as 1736 in a Montreal account book.^(DHLF 1992)^(BHVF)^(TLFi) In the 18th century the word took several analogical senses now out of use: a round curl of hair (1680), a token dropped in a box by a night watchman to prove his round (1752), a firework [[m|en|banger]] (1752), the unburnt core of a lump of lime (1777) and a lump in bread dough (1782).^(TLFi)^(DHLF 1992) The familiar sense “punch in the face” (1881) was preceded by a plural use for “blows, a fight” in the slang of the Brest prison (1821); Rey explains it as a shift from the head that receives the blow to the blow itself, as with [[châtaigne]].^(TLFi)^(DHLF 1992)

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+ English took the colour as [[en|maroon]] in 1791, from ''couleur marron''.^(Etymonline)

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+ ==Timeline==

+ * 1526 – First record, for the large edible chestnut.^(TLFi)

+ * 1640 – Oudin records ''tirer les marrons du feu avec la patte du chat''.^(TLFi)^(DHLF 1992)

+ * 1680 – Richelet records the word for a round curl of hair.^(TLFi)

+ * 1706 – ''Couleur de maron'' is the first record of the colour.^(TLFi)^(DHLF 1992)

+ * 1718 – The Académie records ''marrons d'Inde'', horse chestnuts.^(TLFi)

+ * 1736 – ''Taffetas maron'' appears in a Montreal merchant's journal.^(BHVF)

+ * 1752 – The Trévoux dictionary records the firework and the watchman's token.^(TLFi)

+ * 1791 – English borrows the colour as ''maroon''.^(Etymonline)

+ * 1821 – Prison slang uses ''du marron'' for blows and fighting.^(TLFi)

+ * 1881 – Rigaud records the sense “punch in the face”.^(TLFi)

+

+ ==Meanings==

+ ===Noun===

+ # The large edible [[m|en|chestnut]] of the cultivated chestnut tree;^(Petit Robert 2007) ''marrons glacés'' are chestnuts candied in sugar.^(Petit Robert 2007)^(Larousse)

+ # ''Marron d'Inde'': the inedible seed of the [[m|en|horse chestnut]] tree.^(Petit Robert 2007)^(Larousse)

+ # A reddish-[[m|en|brown]] colour.^(Petit Robert 2007)^(Larousse)

+ # ''(technical)'' A [[m|en|token]] used to check that a guard or worker is at their post.^(Petit Robert 2007)

+ # ''(fireworks)'' A [[m|en|banger]], a small cardboard case filled with powder.^(Larousse)

+ # ''(familiar)'' A [[m|en|punch]], a blow with the fist.^(Petit Robert 2007)^(Larousse)

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+ ===Adjective===

+ # Brown, of a reddish or dark brown colour (invariable: ''des yeux marron'').^(Petit Robert 2007)^(Larousse)

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+ ==Word family==

+ * [[marronnier]]

+ * [[marron glacé]]

+ * [[tirer les marrons du feu]]

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+ {{homograph|2|runaway}}

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+ {{infobox|confidence=established|formation=borrowing|attested=1640}}

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+ ==Pronunciation==

+ * IPA: /ma.ʁɔ̃/^(Wiktionary)

+

+ ==Forms==

+ '''marron''' (feminine marronne, masculine plural marrons, feminine plural marronnes)^(Wiktionary)

+

+ ==Etymology==

+ The runaway is a word of the French West Indies, first recorded in 1640.^(DHLF 1992)^(Grand Robert 2005) It is [[bor|es|cimarrón|t=living in the hills; runaway]] with its first syllable dropped; the Spanish word in Spanish America was said of a domestic animal that had escaped and gone wild and of a fugitive Indian (1535).^(DHLF 1992)^(Grand Robert 2005)^(Petit Robert 2007)^(Wiktionary) Rey takes it through a Caribbean word meaning “wild”, said of animals and plants, and derives the Spanish word either from [[m|es|cima|t=summit]] or from Old Spanish [[m|osp|cimarra|t=thicket]].^(DHLF 1992) Littré, after Scheler, already traced it to the Spanish word, noting an older French form [[m|fr|simarron]].^(Littré 1873)

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+ ==Earliest recorded meaning==

+ In the French Antilles it was first said of a domestic animal that had escaped and gone back to the wild, and, from 1658, of a black slave who had fled into the woods to live free;^(DHLF 1992) Rey sees this second sense as a creation of the colonists, who compared the fugitive slave with an animal gone wild.^(DHLF 1992)

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+ ==Semantic evolution==

+ The sense “living in the wild” is still used in the French of the Indian Ocean islands, and has been extended to plants (''du café marron'').^(DHLF 1992)^(Wiktionary) In France the word came to mean a person who practises a profession without the right to it, as a noun (1762) and as an adjective, as in ''courtier marron'' (1819) and later ''médecin, avocat marron'', first with the idea of illegality, then of dishonesty.^(DHLF 1992)^(BHVF)^(Grand Robert 2005) A book printed clandestinely was called a ''maron'' in the slang of the book trade (1775); Mirabeau remarked in 1788 that the word showed how books and their authors were the censors' slaves.^(BHVF)^(DHLF 1992)

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+ The English noun [[m|en|maroon]] “runaway slave” was borrowed from this word.^(Wiktionary)

+

+ ==Timeline==

+ * 1640 – First record, in the French West Indies.^(DHLF 1992)^(Grand Robert 2005)

+ * 1658 – Said of a slave who has fled to live free.^(DHLF 1992)

+ * 1762 – As a noun, a person who practises a trade without the right to it.^(DHLF 1992)

+ * 1775 – ''Marons'' are clandestinely printed books.^(BHVF)

+ * 1819 – ''Courtier marron'', an unlicensed broker.^(BHVF)^(Grand Robert 2005)

+

+ ==Meanings==

+ ===Adjective===

+ # ''(historical)'' Of a slave: having fled to live free in the wild (''esclave marron'').^(Petit Robert 2007)^(Grand Robert 2005)

+ # Of a domestic animal: escaped and gone back to the [[m|en|wild]].^(Grand Robert 2005)^(Littré 1873)

+ # Practising a profession [[m|en|illegally]] or dishonestly: ''médecin marron'', ''avocat marron''.^(Petit Robert 2007)^(Larousse)

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+ ===Noun===

+ # ''(historical)'' A runaway slave, a [[m|en|maroon]].^(Wiktionary)^(Littré 1873)

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+ ==Word family==

+ * [[marronnage]]

+ * [[marronner]]

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+ ==Related words==

+ * [[marelle]]

+ * [[châtaigne]]

+ * [[it|marrone]]

+ * [[es|cimarrón]]

+ * [[en|maroon]]

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+ ==Usage notes==

+ A third, slang adjective ''marron'' “caught; duped” (''être fait marron'') is recorded from 1855, and earlier in ''marron paumé'' (1811); its origin is uncertain, but the Grand Robert and Rey link it most probably with the runaway word.^(Grand Robert 2005)^(DHLF 1992)^(Petit Robert 2007) As adjectives of colour ''marron'' stays invariable (''des chaussures marron''), while ''marron, marronne'' “unlicensed” agrees (''des avocats marrons'').^(Larousse)

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+ ==References==

+ {{reflist}}