Tout d’abord on peut résumer avec deux phrases à la fin de la rubrique « puits » au DHLF (voir généralement TLFi, Littré) : […] Ainsi puits serait un exemple de ces formes hybrides dues au bilinguisme de la France ...
Inbox : Source #1 des Questions & Réponses à tous les sujets Latest Articles
Transition du s latin au é en français moderne en début de mot
Associations EditorsLe E(S) à l’initiale de mots français a trois raisons possibles : le préfixe français ES dérivé du préfixe latin EX (ébahi) le préfixe latin EX transformé selon les habitudes de la prononciation française.(étrange) la pro(s)thèse du E (l’addition de ...
Help with one definition of “déterminer” found in an old French dictionary
Business Editors“En termes de Philosophie,” seems key. This is (or was) a very narrow usage of the word, and as a native speaker, I hardly understand the given definition (because the philosophy is hard to decipher). The way I understand it, ...
What is the origin of the word “égarer”?
Associations EditorsAs you say égarer is formed with Latin prefix ex/es – meaning “out of”, and garer. If you understand what garer means (“to put aside”) then it’s easy to follow how the two words are related. Garer is to put ...
Voleur au moyen-âge
Business EditorsSelon le TLFi, le mot « larron » remonte à assez loin dans le temps et a signifié « voleur », sous la forme première de « ladron », depuis la fin du Xe siècle, puis sous la forme « ...
Prononciation de l’ancien français
Business EditorsPour comprendre l’évolution de la prononciation des mots français, je conseillerais tout de même, pour ne pas réinventer la roue, de consulter aussi l’un des manuels de phonétique historique du français disponibles sur le marché du livre (Gaston Zink, Emile ...
Word: to stick one’s finger up a chicken’s anus to check for an egg
Associations EditorsMy grandma used to do that. She called it: tater le cul des poules. Whilst this answer/post, unfortunately, does not provide the word itself, it points one in the right direction to locate it. From my comment above: The verb ...
How did ‘knowledge of nature’ narrow semantically to: art of healing, medical science?
Associations EditorsAll of these meanings are closely related. In particular, it is not surprising at all for a root meaning “knowledge of nature” to evolve into words applying to numerous subsets of such a wide concept, like “knowledge of human body ...
How are defunct spellings pronounced when read aloud?
Associations EditorsI’m no expert in old French so I can’t tell you if we should, but we’d definitely pronounce it as it is written, but following the pronunciation rules of modern French. So “déchiroit” would be pronounced as “déchiroit” and “entrez” ...
What was the structure of a french name in the old days?
Associations EditorsSabas can be a girl’s name as well as a boy’s name (what is called in French a prénom épicène): see here. There is an old tradition which is to give the first names of the child’s godfather and godmother ...