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cuivre

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
See also: cuivré

French

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Etymology

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Inherited from Old French cuivre, quivre, queivre, coivre, from Latin Cyprium, cupreum (aes) (compare cuprum) from Ancient Greek Κῠ́προς (Kúpros, Cyprus). It was not uncommon for Greek short ῠ (pronounced in Classical Attic as /y/) to be adapted as Latin short ŭ. This would normally yield Proto-Western-Romance *[o], but a following palatal sound apparently could cause *[o] to be raised to *[u] (or alternatively, the original close quality of Latin short ŭ to be retained) early enough for the sound change of Proto-Western-Romance *[u] > Old French [y] to apply, yielding the now standard form with ⟨ui⟩ (Old French [yj], modern French [ɥi]). Compare truite from Late Latin tructa, puits from Latin puteus, and huis from Latin ōstium.[1] (But ⟨oi⟩ is seen in forms such as rasoir < rasōrium). Compare the development of ēbrius to French ivre (as opposed to *oivre). A competing explanation supposes a sporadic lowering of Latin ŭ to ŏ (yielding *coprium[2]) or of Western Romance *o to *ɔ, since *ɔ was regularly diphthongized to *uɔ before a palatal and the resulting triphthong *uɔi was simplified to Old French ui (compare corium > cuir).

Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key): /kɥivʁ/
  • Audio:(file)

Noun

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cuivre m (countable and uncountable, plural cuivres)

  1. copper
    Le vert-de-gris est la rouille du cuivre.Verdigris is copper rust.
  2. (music) brass
    Coordinate term: bois
  3. (art) copperplate

Derived terms

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Verb

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cuivre

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

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  1. ^ Recasens, Daniel (2023) Consonant-induced sound changes in stressed vowels in Romance:Assimilatory, dissimilatory and diphthongization processes, De Gruyter, page 353
  2. ^ Pope, Mildred Katharine (1952) From Latin to French, with Especial Consideration of Anglo-Norman, Manchester University Press, →ISBN, page 131

Further reading

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