usine French · revision 17509

+ {{infobox|confidence=established|formation=inherited|attested=13th century, Cambrai|origins=la officīna}}

+

+ ==Pronunciation==

+ * IPA: /y.zin/^(Wiktionary)

+

+ ==Forms==

+ '''usine''' ''f'' (plural usines)^(Wiktionary)

+ Old French (Picard) [[m|fro|oechine]], [[m|fro|oechevine]], [[m|fro|ouchine]], [[m|fro|euchine]]; [[m|fro|wisine]] (1274), [[m|fro|uisine]] (1341), ''usine'' (1355).^(TLFi)^(DHLF 1992)^(Wiktionary)

+

+ ==Etymology==

+ It is a word of the dialects of the north and east of France, [[inh|fro|wisine]], [[inh|la|officīna|t=workshop, factory]], with a sound development of its own in those regions.^(TLFi)^(DHLF 1992)^(Bloch & Wartburg 1989)^(FEW|7, 334b) Medieval Latin [[m|la-med|usina]] is recorded in 922 in Franche-Comté for a mill.^(TLFi) The change to the modern form may be due to the verb [[user]] (Rey), or the form with ⟨w⟩ may itself have been altered from the Picard forms after [[cuisine]] (Bloch and Wartburg, the GLLF).^(DHLF 1992)^(Bloch & Wartburg 1989)^(GLLF 1989) Littré's derivation from Latin [[m|la|ūsus|t=use]] has been given up.^(Littré 1873)

+

+ The Latin word is a contraction of [[m|la|opificīna]], from [[m|la|opifex|t=craftsman]], from [[m|la|opus|t=work]] and [[m|la|faciō|t=to make]].^(DHLF 1992) The learned doublet is [[officine]].^(Wiktionary)^(TLFi) The Latin word has few descendants outside French; [[it|fucina|t=forge]] is one.^(Bloch & Wartburg 1989)^(DHLF 1992)

+

+ ==Earliest recorded meaning==

+ In the Customs of the burghers of Cambrai (13th century) ''occhevine'' is a building by a stream where water power drives machinery: a fuller's, brewer's or tanner's workshop, a mill or a press.^(TLFi)

+

+ ==Semantic evolution==

+ Until the 18th century the word was regional and meant an establishment using water-driven machinery, especially a forge.^(TLFi)^(DHLF 1992) It spread in the 18th century through official documents, Bloch and Wartburg's first record being a royal decree of 1732 about Charleville.^(Bloch & Wartburg 1989)^(TLFi) From the 1830s and 1840s, with industrialization, it became the ordinary word for a factory of any kind, whatever drove its machines, and replaced [[fabrique]] and [[manufacture]]: ''les bâtiments des usines'' (Say, 1832), ''usine à gaz'' (1842).^(TLFi)^(DHLF 1992)

+

+ Hugo speaks of a ''librairie'' that would be ''l'usine intellectuelle du monde entier'' (1852), and ''usine à…'' came to mean any place of mass production.^(TLFi)^(DHLF 1992) ''Usine à gaz'' has meant, since the 1960s, a needlessly complicated scheme.^(DHLF 1992)

+

+ ==Timeline==

+ * 13th century – ''Occhevine'' in the Customs of Cambrai.^(TLFi)

+ * 1274 – ''Wisine'' in a charter of the counts of Lille.^(TLFi)

+ * 1355 – The form ''usine''.^(DHLF 1992)^(Grand Robert 2005)

+ * 1732 – A decree of the King's council uses it of an ironworks.^(Bloch & Wartburg 1989)^(Grand Robert 2005)

+ * 1798 – The Académie records the word.^(TLFi)

+ * 1832 – A factory in the modern sense, in Jean-Baptiste Say.^(TLFi)

+ * 1842 – ''Usine à gaz''.^(TLFi)^(DHLF 1992)

+ * 1960s – ''Usine à gaz'' “overcomplicated system”.^(DHLF 1992)

+

+ ==Meanings==

+ ===Noun===

+ # A [[m|en|factory]], an industrial establishment where machines make goods, process raw materials or produce energy: ''travailler en usine''.^(Petit Robert 2007)^(Le Robert)

+ # ''(dated)'' An ironworks or mill driven by water power.^(Grand Robert 2005)^(GLLF 1989)

+ # ''(familiar)'' A place of intense, mass-production activity.^(Larousse)^(GLLF 1989)

+ # ''Usine à gaz'': a [[m|en|gasworks]], ''(figurative)'' a needlessly complicated scheme.^(DHLF 1992)^(TLFi)

+

+ ==Word family==

+ * [[usinier]]

+ * [[usiner]]

+

+ ==Related words==

+ * [[officine]]

+ * [[la|officīna]]

+

+ ==References==

+ {{reflist}}