plutôt French · revision 17406

+ {{infobox|confidence=established|formation=compound|attested=c. 1274, Adenet le Roi, Berte (plus tost… que)}}

+

+ ==Pronunciation==

+ * IPA: /ply.to/^(Wiktionary)

+

+ ==Forms==

+ '''plutôt'''^(Wiktionary)

+ Written ''plus tost'' in Old and Middle French; the joined spelling ''plustost'' appears in 1549.^(DHLF 1992)^(TLFi)

+ The Académie wrote ''plutost'' in 1694, ''plus tost'' in 1718 and ''plustôt'' in 1740, and has had ''plutôt'' since 1835.^(TLFi)

+

+ ==Etymology==

+ It is a compound of [[plus]] and [[tôt]], first the phrase “plus tost”, written as one word from 1549 where it had taken on a sense other than time.^(TLFi)^(DHLF 1992)^(Grand Robert 2005)^(FEW|13/2, 120a) In this phrase “tôt” still had its older sense “quickly”.^(DHLF 1992) Old French [[m|fro|tost]] continues [[la-vul|*tostum]], the neuter of [[la|tostus|t=roasted, burnt]], the past participle of [[m|la|torreō|t=to parch, roast]], used as an adverb; it must first have meant “hotly”, then “promptly”.^(Bloch & Wartburg 1989) The spelling “plus tôt” was kept for the sense of time.^(TLFi)^(DHLF 1992)

+

+ [[it|piuttosto]] is formed in the same way.^(Wiktionary)

+

+ ==Earliest recorded meaning==

+ The phrase ''plus tost… que'' is first found about 1274 in Adenet le Roi's ''Berte'', meaning “sooner than, more willingly than”: ''eles me mengeront plus tost crue que cuite'' (“they will eat me raw rather than cooked”).^(TLFi)^(Littré 1873)

+

+ ==Semantic evolution==

+ From the time sense “more quickly than”, the conjunction ''plus tost… que'' slid to the preference “more willingly than”.^(DHLF 1992) ''Ou plustost'' and ''mais plustost'', introducing a correction, are found in the 1540s, at the time the word began to be used alone as an adverb of preference (before 1563, Bernard Palissy).^(DHLF 1992)^(TLFi)^(BHVF)

+

+ Without an explicit comparison it came to mean “fairly, quite” (1888, Maupassant: ''sa conversation était plutôt reposante''), and familiarly “very”, especially as the exclamation ''plutôt !'' (1908).^(DHLF 1992)^(TLFi) The old time sense survives as an archaism in ''pas plutôt… que'' “no sooner… than”.^(DHLF 1992)^(Petit Robert 2007)

+

+ ==Timeline==

+ * c. 1274 – ''Plus tost… que'' “more willingly than”, in Adenet le Roi.^(TLFi)

+ * 1541 – ''Mais plustost'' in Calvin's ''Institution''.^(BHVF)^(DHLF 1992)

+ * 1549 – The joined form and ''ou plustost'', in Noël du Fail.^(TLFi)^(DHLF 1992)

+ * 1563 – The adverb alone, “by preference”, in Palissy.^(TLFi)

+ * 1835 – The Académie settles on the spelling ''plutôt''.^(TLFi)

+ * 1888 – “Fairly, rather”, in Maupassant.^(TLFi)

+ * 1908 – Familiar “very”, and ''plutôt !''.^(DHLF 1992)

+

+ ==Meanings==

+ ===Adverb===

+ # [[m|en|rather]], by [[m|en|preference]]: ''plutôt mourir'', ''plutôt que de se plaindre''.^(Petit Robert 2007)^(Larousse)

+ # ''Ou plutôt'': or more exactly (introducing a [[m|en|correction]]).^(Larousse)^(Le Robert)

+ # Fairly, quite, [[m|en|somewhat]]: ''c'est plutôt gentil''.^(Larousse)^(GLLF 1989)

+ # ''(familiar)'' Very; as an exclamation, “and how!”.^(GLLF 1989)^(DHLF 1992)

+ # ''(archaic)'' Sooner, now written ''plus tôt''; still in ''ne… pas plutôt… que'' “no sooner… than”.^(Petit Robert 2007)^(TLFi)

+

+ ==Related words==

+ * [[plus]]

+ * [[tôt]]

+ * [[aussitôt]]

+ * [[bientôt]]

+ * [[sitôt]]

+ * [[tantôt]]

+

+ ==References==

+ {{reflist}}