French word of the day: 13 décembre 2018

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:

1. the state of being definite or of having no doubts at all about something
   
2. the fact that something is certain to happen
   
3. things that nobody has any doubts about
   

The word certitude is defined as the following by Le Dictionnaire.

1. assurance pleine et entire d’une chose
   
2. adhésion forte et invincible de l’esprit à une chose qu’il reconnaît vraie
   
3. stabilité, pérennité
   

Can You Use It In A Sentence?

Condamnés à la mort, condamnés à la vie, voilà deux certitudes