vaste French · revision 17677

+ {{infobox|confidence=established|formation=borrowing|attested=1495, Jean de Vignay|origins=la vāstus}}

+

+ ==Pronunciation==

+ * IPA: /vast/^(Wiktionary)

+

+ ==Forms==

+ '''vaste''' (plural vastes)^(Wiktionary)

+

+ ==Etymology==

+ It is [[bor|la|vāstus|t=empty, desolate; devastated; huge]].^(TLFi)^(Bloch & Wartburg 1989)^(Wiktionary)^(FEW|14, 209a) The Latin adjective had already given Old French [[m|fro|guast]], [[m|fro|wast]] and [[m|fro|gast]] “devastated, uncultivated”, whose form shows the influence of a Frankish word, the family of [[gâter]] and [[gâtine]]; the modern form (1495) is a remodelling of that word on the Latin, and so a borrowing.^(TLFi)^(DHLF 1992)^(Grand Robert 2005) Littré notes that the Old French word, used in the 12th century in the sense “desert”, disappears afterwards and was remade from Latin in the early 17th century.^(Littré 1873)

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+ The Latin word belongs to a family of Indo-European words in ⟨w-⟩ expressing emptiness, like the source of [[vain]] and [[vaquer]].^(DHLF 1992)

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+ ==Earliest recorded meaning==

+ In 1495, in Jean de Vignay's ''Miroir historial'', it means desert, uncultivated, uninhabited.^(TLFi)^(DHLF 1992)

+

+ ==Semantic evolution==

+ The Old French forms meant “ruined, laid waste”, then “uncultivated, barren”, and ''gaste maison'' a deserted house (1372).^(DHLF 1992) The modern form kept the sense of a wild, uninhabited place in the 16th century.^(DHLF 1992)

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+ In the 17th century ''vaste'' took the sense “very large”: of an expanse (Bertaut, 1611), a building (1643), a design or project (1623), a crowd (1625) and a huge animal (Corneille, 1656).^(TLFi)^(GLLF 1989) Cotgrave records the anatomical ''muscle vaste'' in 1611.^(TLFi)

+

+ ==Timeline==

+ * 1080 – Old French ''guast'' “devastated”.^(DHLF 1992)^(Petit Robert 2007)

+ * 1495 – ''Vaste'' “desert” in Jean de Vignay.^(TLFi)

+ * 1611 – Bertaut: of a great expanse, Cotgrave: ''muscle vaste''.^(TLFi)

+ * 1623 – ''Vaste dessein'' in Théophile de Viau.^(TLFi)

+ * 1643 – “Spacious”, in Tristan L'Hermite.^(TLFi)

+ * 1656 – Corneille's ''vaste éléphant''.^(TLFi)

+

+ ==Meanings==

+ ===Adjective===

+ # [[m|en|vast|alt=Vast]], very large in extent: ''une vaste plaine'', ''un vaste empire''.^(Petit Robert 2007)^(Wiktionary)

+ # Of a building or garment, very large, [[m|en|spacious]], ample.^(Petit Robert 2007)^(GLLF 1989)

+ # Large in number: ''un vaste rassemblement''.^(Petit Robert 2007)

+ # Wide in scope or range: ''une vaste culture''.^(Petit Robert 2007)^(TLFi)

+ # ''(anatomy)'' ''Muscle vaste'', or ''le vaste'': a large muscle of the thigh.^(Petit Robert 2007)^(TLFi)

+

+ ==Related words==

+ * [[gâter]]

+ * [[dévaster]]

+ * [[la|vāstus]]

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+ ==References==

+ {{reflist}}