 Bonjour à tous et bienvenus ! Merci de m’avoir rejoint! Je suis tellement ravi de vous revoir. The word of the day for 09 janvier 2019 was ‘diriger’. Origin: This word’s first recorded usage in French dates back to the 14th century. It first appeared during the The Great Schism of 1378 in the year 1381. The Great Schism of 1378 was the split within the Roman Catholic Church that lasted from 1378 to 1417. During this period of time, the papacy was split between three men who claimed to be the true pope. The word came to fruition in order to describe the idea of leading the people in a certain direction, in other words, «faire aller dans un certain sens». To conclude this mini history lesson, the Great Schism of 1378 ended with the Council of Constance, which was held between 1414 and 1418. They agreed to set their differences aside and elected one true pope (this is the condensed story of what happened). Today, the word is very commonly used and is amongst the 4000 most commonly used words in the French Language according to Collins Dictionary.  Jan Hus at the Council of Constance Karl Friedrich Lessing 1839 Etymologie: The word derives from the Latin dīrigō, dīrigere meaning ‘to direct’, simplified into a first conjugation French verb. Translation: Collins Dictionary translates ‘diriger’ to mean the represent the following meanings in English:
Definition: The word diriger is defined as the following by Le Dictionnaire:
Can You Use It In A Sentence? Le prof de Français a décidé que pour le débat de la semaine prochaine, les élèves du classe vont diriger la conversation.
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 Bonjour à tous et bienvenus ! Merci de m’avoir rejoint! Je suis tellement ravi de vous revoir. The word of the day for 08 janvier 2019, yesterday, was ‘aventure’. Origin: The word’s first recorded usage in French dates back to the 11th century. It first appeared in Vie de saint Alexis or Chanson de saint Alexis, a collection of medieval poems and hagiographies (writings of the lives of saints) that told the life story of Saint Alexis of Rome. The word first appears in quartet 89 and reads: Français Médiéval : «A! lasse, cum oï fort aventure!» Traduction Français Moderne : la bonne aventure. Today, the word is very commonly used and is amongst the 4000 most commonly used words in the French Language according to Collins Dictionary. Etymology: The word derives from the Vulgar Latin *adventura, which derives from the Late Latin adventurus from the Latin adventus.  Translation: Collins Dictionary translates ‘aventure’ to mean ‘adventure’ in English. Definition: The word adventure is defined as the following by Collins Dictionary:
Can You Use It In A Sentence? Et, sans faire le vain, mon aventure est telle, Que de la même ardeur que je brûle pour elle Elle brûle pour moi. -MALHERBE, François. Stances. 1609  Bonjour à tous! The French word of the day for 8 January 2019 is 'aventure'. An in depth look at the meaning, etymology, and usage of the word will follow later today. 'Aventure' translates to 'adventure' in English.  Bonjour à tous et bienvenus! I apologise for the late word of the day >.< Merci de m’avoir rejoint, je suis tellement ravis de vous revoir. As I play around with the ‘French Word of The Day’ component of this website, I will eliminate and play around with the format as well. That said, I want to introduce a definition section where you can find definitions in both French and English. Let us move forward and expand our French vocabulary with yesterday’s French word of the day…‘Certitude’!  Origin: The word’s first recorded use in French dates back to the 16th century in the year 1581 by financial expert Nicolas Fromenteau. The following quote is the first literary documentation of the word found in Fromenteau’s third Finances book on page 389. « Tellement que qui voudroit representer la certitude de l'interest qu'a supporté chacun diocese, pour raison d'icelle surcharge…, » Today the word is very commonly used and is one of the 4000 most commonly used words in the Collins Dictionary.  https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/french-english/certitude Etymology: The word ‘certitude’ derives from the Middle French ‘certitude’, borrowed from Late Latin ‘certitūdō’ which itself was derived from the Latin word ‘certus’ which meant “sure” and the suffix -tūdō for noun of state. This later evolved to –tude in contemporary French. Our word of the day today has no prefix and is only comprised of a root and a suffix. The root of the word is ‘certi’ which derives from the Latin ‘certitūdō’ to mean ‘sure’. The suffix of the word –tude which derives from the latin –tūdō which is represents a “noun of state”. **State as in state of being, not regional location. ** If we combine the root and suffix of the word we get the following: certi + tude (sure + state of being) to be sure of. What is the direct translation? Keep reading to find out. Translation: Collins dictionary translates ‘certitude’ as ‘certainty’. Definition: The word certainty is defined as the following by Collins Dictionary:
Can You Use It In A Sentence? Condamnés à la mort, condamnés à la vie, voilà deux certitudes   Bonjour à tous et bienvenus! Je suis content de vous revoir. Let us expand our French vocabulary with today’s word of the day, ‘Désespoir’! Origin: The word’s first recorded use dates back to the XII century. Trends in word usage suggest that 1734 was the beginning of this word’s rise in popularity; this of course is based on estimations by Collins dictionary. ‘Désespoir’is one of the 4,000 most commonly used words in the French Language today.  Source: https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/french-english/d%C3%A9sespoir Etymology: The word ‘Désespoir’ derives from the latin spērāre, which is the present active infinitive of spērō. Spērō can be defined as follows:
Contrary to our other ‘Word of the Day’s thus far, the word ‘désespoir’ is formed from a prefix and root but does not contain a suffix.
The prefix of the word originates from the Middle French des-, which originated from the Old French des-, which originated from the Latin dis-, which in turn originates from the Proto-Indo-European *dwís. Proto-Indo-What-now? I know! I know! Let us pause for a second to explain what all of this means. As students of French and even students of your mother language; at some point in time you realised that words originate from other languages. Latin and Greek are the two that often come to mind. Linguistics is like a surprise cookie; you never know what flavour you will get, but it is amazing nonetheless. A proto-language is essentially a hypothetical and undocumented parent language from which modern languages are derived from. These are languages that began from oral tradition by our ancestors thousands and thousands of years ago. Think of a proto-language as a sort of cavewoman mother language. That said, the Proto-Indo-European language group is the common ancestor of French, English, Latin, Greek, Russian, Gaelic, Hindi, and many other languages spoken in Europe and India. I decided to explain this now because our future words of the day will also feature Proto-Indo-European prefixes and suffixes and do not want to explain it again down the road. Anyway... the prefix des- essentially represents the reversal of sense of the succeeding word. In ‘désespoir’ the succeeding word is the root ‘espoir’. The root is a deverbal word, meaning a word derived from a verb, espérer which holds the following meanings:
Now that you have this information, do you think you can guess the meaning of this word? No? Let’s try together. Combine the Prefix and the root: Dés- + espoir. Let me remind you that the root of today’s word of the day, dés-, means the reversal of sense of the succeeding word, espoir, which means to hope. Despair should as a result mean the reversal of hope. Translation: Collins dictionary translates ‘désespoir’ as ‘despair’. Breaking this down a bit further, despair is defined as “the feeling that everything is wrong and that nothing will improve”. Can You Use It In A Sentence? Depuis la fin de sa rélation amoureuse avec son amant, M. Niney ne ressentait que le désespoir. Il s’est rendu compte qu’il est tombé amoureux d’elle.  Bonjour à tous et bienvenus! Je suis content de vous revoir. Let us expand our French vocabulary with today’s word of the day, ‘Ralentir’! Origin: It is estimated that ‘Ralentir’first appeared in oral tradition beginning around 1711; in written text the word first appeared in the year 1837. Louis Viardot, French author, art historian, art critic, theatrical figure, and translator first used the word in his French translation of the Spanish novel El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. The word appears in Volume I, Chapter XXXIII: «... Lothaire commença à ralentirpeu à peu, par réflexion, ses allées et venues dans la maison de son ami.»  Source: https://www.akal.com/libro/el-ingenioso-hidalgo-don-quijote-de-la-mancha_35166/ Etymology: The word is derived from the archaic and now obsolete French word ‘alentir’.
The prefix originates from the Old French, a-, which stems from Latin, ad-, which denotes entering a state or making progress toward a goal, etc., The root originates from the Old French, lent, which comes from the Latin lentus. The word lent in turn translate to ‘slow’ in English. Collins Dictionary defines the word slow in the following ways:
The suffix -ir is used to denote that the word’s ending denotes that the word is a verb that may be conjugated in any of the French tenses. Now that you have this information, do you think you can guess the meaning of this word? No? Need a little help? Try this! Lets use arithmetic equations to assist us…well not necessarily, but let’s use the structure of formulas to help us with this. [R]a- + lent. + -ir (toward) + (slow) + (verbal suffix) If I had to guess based off this equation alone, I would say that the word means to move slowly towards something or to slow down. Am I right? Keep reading to find out. Translation: Collins dictionary translates the French verb ‘ralentir’ to mean “ to slow down”. Can You Use It In A Sentence? Victor ralentissait sa vitesse quand la pluie commence à tomber. Bonjour à tous et bienvenus! Je suis content de te revoir. I must apologise for the lack of content being posted as of late. I have been busy with a few projects and will be launching some new exciting features and experiences to this website. Enough on that let us get to today's word of the day which is 'embaumer'. Origin: The word embaumer's first recorded use dates back to 1711! Over the years, the popularity of the word has declined. But what does it mean?  Source: https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/french-english/embaumer Etymology: The word embaumer's etymology is comprised of the following:
The prefix originates from the Old French en- which stems from the Latin in-, meaning ("in, into, on, onto"). The prefix can also denote that the word at hand will have something to do with covering or causing. The root originates from the Old French, basme, which comes from the Latin balsamum which borrows from Ancient Greek's βάλσαμον (bálsamon). This word translates to 'balm' in English. Collins Dictionary defines the word balm as the following: 1. any of various oily aromatic resinous substances obtained from certain tropical trees and used for healing and soothing 2. any plant yielding such a substance, esp the balm of Gilead 3. something comforting or soothing 4. any aromatic or oily substance used for healing or soothing The suffix -er is used to denote that the word is a verb that you can conjugate. Okay. I know you're thinking to yourself, "Why do I need to know any of this"? I will tell you. If you start to understand what the prefixes and suffixes of words are and mean, you will be able to guess the meaning of a word simply by looking at it. This proves rather helpful when you are in the exam room and you come across a word that you are unsure of its meaning or context in relation to the rest of the text. The image below will visually present to you all the information I have provided you thus far.  Source: https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/embalm Translation: Ladies and gentlemen, drum roll please! The moment you have all been waiting for and by now may have already guessed... THE TRANSLATION! The word of the day, embaumer, translates to "embalm" in English. Collins dictionary defines the word embalm as follows: 1. to treat (a dead body) with preservatives, as by injecting formaldehyde into the blood vessels, to retard putrefaction 2. to preserve or cherish the memory of 3. to give a sweet fragrance to Can You Use It In A Sentence? The following is a short excerpt from chapter eight of Antoine De Saint-Exupéry's Le Petit Prince. In this excerpt the Little Prince talks about never trusting the flowers on his home planet and furthermore expressed the distress he felt from the sweet fragrance the flowers provided him and his planet. I can go on and analyse this more but this is not a literary lecture. So here you go! "J'aurais dû ne pas l'écouter, me confia-t-il un jour, il ne faut jamais écouter les fleurs. Il faut les regarder et les respirer. La mienne embaumait ma planète mais je ne savais pas m'en réjouir. Cette histoire de griffes, qui m'avait tellement agacé, eût dû m'attendrir..." Il me confia encore: "Je n'ai alors rien su comprendre! J'aurais dû la juger sur les actes et non sur les mots. Elle m'embaumait et m'éclairait. Je n'aurais jamais dû m'enfuir! J'aurais dû deviner sa tendressse derrière ses pauvres ruses. Les fleurs sont si contradictoires! Mais j'étais trop jeune pour savoir l'aimer"  Source: Antoine De Sainte-Exupéry Bonjour à tous! Today's word of the day is "besoin" which translates to "need". This word originates from Middle French, Old French besoing; can be seen as a masculine variant of besogne, from Old French besonge, from Old Frankish bisunnija, from sunnijōn (“to look after”) hence a possible origin for the french word soigner, possibly through a Vulgar Latin intermediate bisonium. Can you use it in a sentence? Mais bien sûr! Stephanie avait raison...j'ai besoin de quelqu'un. J'ai besoin de quelqu'un qui pourra m'aimer et me protéger des maux du monde. Translation? Of course! Stephanie was right... I need someone. I need someone who can love me and protect me from the evils of the world. |
Jules FrancoFrench Language and Culture enthusiast, fashion trend-setter extraordinaire. My goal is to provide students with resources, materials, and insight that will help French Language acquisition less intimidating and more enjoyable. Archives
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