étuve

See also: étuvé

French

Etymology

Inherited from Middle French estuve, from Old French estuve. According to the Trésor de la Langue Française, from a Vulgar Latin *extupa, from a verb *extupāre, from ex- + *tupāre, from Ancient Greek τύφω (túphō, “to smoke”). This word may have originally entered southern Gaul via Marseille before the Roman conquest.

Alternatively Old French estuve (“room for steam baths”) derives from Vulgar Latin *stuba (whence Occitan estuba), from Frankish *stubu (“room, heated room”). Cognate with Old High German stupa, stuba (German Stube (“room”)), Old English stofa, stofu (“bathroom, bathhouse”), Old Norse stofa (whence Icelandic stofa (“living room”) and Danish and Norwegian stue). More at stove.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /e.tyv/

• Audio (France (Toulouse)):

  (file)

Noun

étuve f (plural étuves)

1. drying oven
2. sauna
3. (figuratively) a hot place; an oven
4. (historical) public baths
   • 1857, Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary […]‎^[1], Paris: Michel Lévy Frères; republished as Eleanor Marx, transl., Madame Bovary, 1886:

     C'était la première fois qu'Emma s'entendait dire ces choses; et son orgueil, comme quelqu'un qui se délasse dans une étuve, s'étirait mollement et tout entier à la chaleur de ce langage.

     It was the first time that Emma had heard such words spoken to herself, and her pride, like one who reposes bathed in warmth, expanded softly and fully at this glowing language.

Verb

étuve

1. inflection of étuver:
   1. first/third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
   2. second-person singular imperative

Further reading

• “étuve”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012

Anagrams

• vêtue