Talk:List of English words of French origin

”’--216.48.138.32 (talk) 15:14, 19 November 2008 (UTC)Tis is hayley & Lakin The way I scanned the dictionary has left this list with some really big holes... it's missing some really obvious words. If only I could think of them.  :) fabiform | talk 19:24, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Untitled

How many of these newly-added words are really from Latin and not from French? RickK 00:13, 17 May 2004 (UTC)

95% of the time, a Latin word entered English via some period of French. Alexander 007 16:54, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Mistakes?

Many words of that list are, I'm sure, not french words and not even words entered in English language through the French language or with the french meaning. I'm speaking about words that certainly were knowns in "Britani"a during the Roman Empir;e long before there was French language and that we can find in ancients writs of the antiquity. For instance:

• The names of the months
• Medical: from the latin medicus
• Nepotisme: from the italian nepotismo, the policy of privileging nephews from cardinals of the Roman Catholic church
• Mendacius: from the latin mendax
• Omnipotens: from the latin omnipontens
• Rome: It seems to me that Rome existed before France and certanly people i Britania listened to speak about it.
• Occident: is the participle of the verb occidere = to kill, and described the side in wich the sun finish its daily life
• Patrician

And many others

It seems to me, frankly, that many of these words have being put here with a "gallocentrique" spirit, that wants to see French influence everywhere they see. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.151.78.232 (talk) 08:22, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Suggestion

I noticed this list uses various ways of commenting the origin of the word. I think we should standardize it and make it more "dictionary like". I suggest this one syntax:

Example:

Nation [Middle English nacioun, from Old French nation, from Latin natio, from natus, past participle of nascere, meaning "to be born".] (Compare contemporary French nation.)

I welcome all comments. There may be reasons not to go forward this way. I would certainly like to know before I start going over the list... ;-)

-- Mathieugp 05:36, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I think that's an excellent idea. Also, maybe we can take out multiple inflections of words (e.g. absurd, absurdism, absurdity) that clutter up the page. --Psp 00:50, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I agree. We should not have the multiple inflections of the same word as different elements of the list. -- Mathieugp 00:28, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Some words I don't recognize

Maybe all of them are French-originated, but I don't recognize the link with French, or don't know the word. Maybe some explanation ?

• abet (Old Fr. abeter from beter bait)
• abstruse (Fr. abstruse)
• alabastre (Old Fr. alabastre, Gr. alabastros)
• attorney (Old Fr. atorné, from atorner, a 12th century Norman French borrowing)
• average (Old Fr. avarie according to Oxford)
• averment (Old Fr. averement)
• avouch (Old Fr. avochier)
• aye-aye (ultimately from Malaysian aiay)

I stop now with the 'A'. Take care, some of the words have not the same meaning in English and in French. That is "trompeur". Gwalarn 21:52, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

You have to realize that a lot of these words passed from Norman French to English in the 12th, 13th, 14th etc. centuries. The words have often changed in French or maybe they are no longer used in French and are not even in the current French dictionary. In other words, some of these words are so old that they were only preserved in English, while in French they were altered or supplanted by other terms.

In the case of aye-aye, we are dealing with a foreign word that was picked up by English speakers from French, but in French it was picked up from another language (in this case Malaysian). This is quite common with Latin words in the English language that were passed to English from French. Note that there is a distinction between a latin word and a word derived from latin. This is important as most words in French are ultimately derived from a subset of the many dialects of vernacular latin spoken in Gaule.

That's easier to link with these explanations. Thank you. Some precisions.

• abeter is unknown in my French dictionnary but appears on a site from Quebec as an "uncommon word", and proposes an accent on the firs "e" : abéter.
• alabastre is now "albâtre" in modern French
• In the case of averment, I don't find it in my English dictionnaries (Cobuild, Robert & Collins, and WordReference.com). Is it a rare word ? Is it related to "to aver" ? According to the site TLFI http://atilf.atilf.fr/tlf.htm, the French word "avérément" (certainly, really) is a neologism from 1939. I can say that it is no longer used. The word is not old, but has had a short career. I've never heard of it before today.
• The same pb with "avochier" : avouch is unknown in my dictionnaries, and avochier too, including the TLFI, which is uncommon (all the words from the Middle Age are supposed to be in). What does mean this word ?
• aye-aye : I discover the name of this small mammal from Madagascar (so : Madagascan and not Malaysian). For TLFI, the etymology is unknown. As Madagascan, it is more logical that this word passed by French speakers than if it was Malaysian. But a rare word, too.

Gwalarn 03:30, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I follow my list :

• catch (Old Norman Fr. cachier)
• cattle (Old Fr. chatel)
• cheat (Old Fr. achete or eschete)
• cheer (Old Fr. chiere)

• deuce (Old Fr. deus)

• endue (Old Fr. enduire)

• indicment (Anglo-French enditement)

Some of these words are true french and not used in the english language by people who do not understand french or at least I feel so

Any English word is one that speakers of English use to share equal meaning, such as the term "a la carte," which I believe rarely takes the accent in a standard menu. Of course, a fancy or pricier restaurant with a maitre d might have the accent. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociolinguistics#Covert_prestige This article here does not currently address which words are high-prestige French borrowings so retain their "Frenchiness" versus the words that have been completely nativized (like mustard), so have no other term in English and use English phonology and spelling. I have observed but not yet published in print that American nativizations differ markedly from those done by English speakers elsewhere. (The American ones are more likely to glom onto the spelling and phonology of the borrowed word.)MichelleInSanMarcos (talk) 23:59, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

I notoiced that a few of these word are truly french and not realy english. (It seems with a few of these words that you are just trying too hard to have a big list)
Here are some words that do not seem to me like english but are just plain french.
adieu
à la carte
beaux arts
bon voyage
(the list goes on but for brevity's sake I excluded them)
Anyone else think so or do I just live in a part of the english world without any french? Andrew D White 00:48, August 8, 2005 (UTC)

Adieu and à la carte get used in English a lot. Bon voyage less so, though it is used perhaps almost as much as adieu. Beaux arts I've never heard, but I wouldn't put it past English speakers to use them. The Jade Knight (talk) 12:32, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Concur. Especially à la carte: can be seen on more fancy restarant(which I think is also a French word)s' menus. -121.166.117.130 (talk) 14:39, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

I would go by the usual pronunciation. That would make bon voyage and perhaps beaux arts French but adieu (a dew) English. Vaughan Pratt (talk) 14:36, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

Wikilinkage

Currently, this page is only spottedly wikified - should perhaps every word be linked to articles? Should they be linked to Wikipedia or Wikitionary articles? I think we should have all of them link to the Wikitionary definitions. - Stillnotelf 20:51, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Unresolved

Should the word be linked to Wikipedia or Wikitionary? — Senator2029║talk 16:18, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Inclusion of word list

It seems that the inclusion of the actual word list in the article is disputed. I agree that Wikipedia is not a dictionary, etc. However, this list provides information above that of a dictionary, including Wiktionary. The Wiktionary category Wiktionary:Category:French derivations provides a mere list of derived words. This article provides additional information on entymology. Although ideally this list should probably be part of Wiktionary, at the moment this seems to be the only place the information is available, so I think it should remain while this is the case. - Thejesterx 16:30, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

What are you talking about? If you click on each entry in Wiktionary, it will lead to a separate page for that entry, where an even fuller etymology is possible, and often already present. You didn't even bother to check Wiktionary's potential, but I will agree to allow the list to linger till it is transcribed into Wiktionary. Alexander 007 16:33, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Sure, clicking each word will take you to the definition, including etymological information, I meant that this list is different as all the information is in one place. Plus, it currently covers far more words than the Wiktionary category. I agree that this list should not ideally be here, and will probably be removed when it is available elsewhere. I just think we'd be losing information by removing it at the moment. Perhaps a vote should be taken, the one taken for List of Greek words had many opinions from both sides. - Thejesterx 16:40, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Thejesterx's argument that "at the moment this seems to be the only place the information is available". If someone wanted to do the job of categorizing, in Wiktionary, all the words that appear in this list, then I guess we could remove the in-article list. -- Mathieugp 18:43, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

We seem to agree that in the future the list should be transferred to Wiktionary. We should stick by this. But as long as the list is put up, somebody may come by and add more words to it, which would just drag out the process. I really believe that the list should be eliminated in the future, and the article should be framed in the manner of English words of Greek origin. Alexander 007 02:30, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Bot?

I don't know much about Wikipedia bots, but I imagine it should be fairly simple to make one to scan down this list, and add all the words on it to the appropriate category in the Wiktionary. This could be applied to all similar lists, eg look back to the history of the Greek list etc. Anyone have any experience with this sort of thing? - Thejesterx 08:29, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

That actually sounds very complex, and I would be surprised if that's possible. Alexander 007 08:49, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Hey dude, I just discovered something: many of those words are already ready to be listed, you just have to add the Category:French derivations to each word in Wiktionary. I just went to the Wiktionary abandon entry, added the French Derivations category, and voilá, it was added to the list. Alexander 007 08:57, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

That's good news, sounds easy but tedious. I'll still look into an automated system. - Thejesterx 09:54, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Moving to Wiktionary

Ok, so I've linked every word to Wiktionary! Hope that helps with moving the list. If not, just revert it. Also, we should all make sure to copy any etymological information to the Wiktionary entry (if its not already there) when moving, eg "(Fr. absorber)", as well as putting the word in the category. Also, if it is a current French word in English usage it should be in Wiktionary's English borrowed words Category. - Thejesterx 14:48, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Hmmm, there also seems to be an Wiktionary:Category:Old French derivations category, I guess all the words derived from Old French instead of modern French should be in that one instead. - Thejesterx 15:01, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

This is a great article – thanks all for your work! – and well-suited to Wiktionary: it is a list of words, not (Wikipedia) articles. On Wiktionary, it would naturally fit as “Index:French derivations”, to complement the category there. Accordingly, I’ve flagged it as “Move to Wiktionary”. (This’ll also make linking a bit easier in future!)

—Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 19:17, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

The word "vintage"

Just a little explanation about the word "vintage": it is a french word coming from "vingt ans d'âge", which means "twenty years old". In french, the word, which had been forgotten is now re-discovered but is now pronounced as in english. Some other french words had been rediscovered and pronounced in the english way such as "bacon", or "suspens".

Mix of French and Norman!

This list makes no distinction between Norman and French! This is a great etymological problem, and by lumping Norman in with French, only serves to confuse people.

For example: Catch comes from Norman, Chase from French. Warranty from Norman, Guaranty from French. Castle, Mug, Mutton, Beef (etc.)… all these came from Norman, not French. On the other hand, many other later Latinate borrowings come from French (such as "corps"). The Jade Knight 20:52, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Norman is essentially old French (Langue d'oil) or a dialect thereof, I'm not sure what you mean here. Stating that "warranty" comes from "Norman" while "guaranty" comes from "French" seems completely arbitrary to me. Merriam Webster defines the origin of both words as "anglo-french" (ie Anglo-Norman) for instance. 82.231.41.7 21:16, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Mirriam webster is not exactly well-informed when it comes to Historical Linguistics in English. There's no arbitrariness to it: Norman underwent different sound changes than French. In certain dialects of Norman (including those imported in England) gu- became w-. This is not true of French. The difference is obvious in the words "chase" and "catch"; these two words mean virtually the same thing in French (chasser) and Norman (cachi), respectively, and have the same origin > in French, the ca- initial syllable shifted to cha-, whereas in Norman, the end of the root shifted to -ch-, where it did not do so in French. The Jade Knight (talk) 12:40, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Unless there is significant objection and discussion, I will be renaming this page "List of English words of French and Norman origin". The Jade Knight (talk) 12:40, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

rewrite

this naked list is useless, or to put it bluntly, stupid. What this article needs is an encyclopedic account of the history of French-to-English loans. --dab (𒁳) 11:31, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

• Agree G. C. Hood (talk) 23:10, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Split Article?

Should this article be split up by letter, since it is not sortable?--Jax 0677 (talk) 18:20, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

• No. Op47 (talk) 23:17, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
• It shouldn't be split. The list should be deleted, since Wikipedia is not a dictionary or an indiscriminate collection of information, and an article on the history of French-to-English loans should be written in its place as suggested above. G. C. Hood (talk) 23:09, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Neologisms

The pie chart adds to 100%, but neologisms don't seem to fit any of the categories shown, although they account for a significant and growing proportion of the English language. I'm thinking of Internet, laser, e-mail, CB-er, bitcoin, hassle, twerk, etc.
☺ Dick Kimball (talk) 15:21, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

Latin is not French

The list shows months borrowed from French as including November and December. Seriously not even close. The Ides of March were the start of the new year. The year used to end in February. If you were going to add an extra day to the year wouldn't you put it at the end of the year. Yes and that is what we did. We added it to February. So the year started in March and after August the Romans ran out of emperors to name the months after. They just numbered the months. In Latin 7 is Septem, 8 is Octo, 9 is Novem and 10 is Decem. Hence the 7th month is September, 8th is October, 9th is November and 10th is December. These aren't French! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.103.184.76 (talk) 20:55, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Considering AfD

I'm considering putting this up for WP:AfD. The article is a mess and the solitary source is a promotional page. Anyone got good reasons why not AfD? The Jade Knight (talk) 04:49, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

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09671810659 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2400:AC40:A39:21A4:4B46:EFE1:C43B:83AD (talk) 01:30, 26 December 2022 (UTC)