renard

French

Etymology

The name of the fox in the medieval Roman de Renart; originally Reinhard, a Germanic personal name, from Proto-Germanic *ragina (“counsel by the gods”) + Old High German harti (“hard, strong”).

Replaced goupil (from Latin vulpecula) by euphemism (properly, antonomasia) – mentioning the fox by name was considered bad luck, so Renart replaced it. Compare English bear (from “brown”, in Proto-Indo-European) and Russian медведь (medvéd’, “bear”), literally “honey-eater”.

Pronunciation

• audio

  (file)

• IPA: /ʁənaʁ/, X-SAMPA: /R@.naR/

Noun

renard m (plural renards; feminine renarde, plural renardes)

1. fox

Derived terms

• renard polaire

See also

• goupil
• renardeau
• Goupil (French surname, see Saint René Goupil)

Anagrams

• rendra