loutre

French

Etymology

From Old French lutre, from Latin lutra, from Proto-Italic *utrā, from Proto-Indo-European *udréh₂, the feminine form of *udrós, from the root *wed-. In Old French, there were variants leurre (which is the normal phonetic result) and loirre (from a Vulgar Latin form *lutria, influenced by Ancient Greek ἐνυδρίς (enudrís); cf. Occitan luria, Catalan llúdria, Spanish lutria, nutria). The standard modern form loutre probably maintained the -t- due to influence from Frankish and Germanic (compare Dutch and English otter, German Otter).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /lutʁ/

• Audio:

  (file)

Noun

loutre f (plural loutres)

1. otter

Derived terms

• loutre commune
• loutre de mer
• loutre d’Europe
• loutre européenne

 

Descendants

• → Romanian: lutră
• → Turkish: lutr

Further reading

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

Anagrams

• ourlet, rotule