monsieur
Appearance
See also: Monsieur
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]From French monsieur. Doublet of monseigneur and monsignor.
Pronunciation
[edit]- IPA(key): /məˈsjʊə(ɹ)/, /məˈsjɜː(ɹ)/
Audio (Southern England): (file)
Noun
[edit]monsieur (plural monsieurs or messieurs)
- (dated) A man, especially a French gentleman.
- 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “The Cabin”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 589:
- Pass round the decanters; glad to see ye; fill up, monsieurs!
Related terms
[edit]Anagrams
[edit]French
[edit]Etymology
[edit]From mon (“my”) + sieur, from the oblique case of Old French sire (cf. also seignor), ultimately from Latin senior. The first syllable has been reduced through frequent use. Loss of word-final /r/ was common in Early Modern French, but failed to establish itself except in (most) words in -er. Monsieur and gars are two relics of this pronunciation habit.
Pronunciation
[edit]Noun
[edit]monsieur m (plural messieurs)
- mister, sir (a title or form of address for a man, used with or without the name in direct or third-person address)
- gentleman
- Il y a un monsieur pour vous voir.
- There's a gentleman here to see you.
Usage notes
[edit]- A custom held that it was impolite to use Monsieur with a family name (e.g. Monsieur Dupont) in direct address from a hierarchical inferior to a superior, unless it was needed to disambiguate. Instead, one should simply address the person as Monsieur. This custom may now be obsolete.
- Unlike in English, Monsieur is frequently used without a name or article as a polite reference to a man in the third person, notably in official registers:
- Monsieur s’est présenté à l’urgence à 18 h 12.
- The/This gentleman/The patient/Mr. [name] attended the emergency room at 6:12 p.m.
- Additionally, Monsieur (and Madame) are sometimes used in conjunction with titles/roles in formal registers.
- Monsieur le Directeur fera une annoncement à 13h30.
- The director will be making a presentation at 3:30pm.
- Madame le Président a prononcé un discours en lequel elle a dit que la guerre n’est pas juste.
- The president has made a speech in which she said that the war is unjust.
- Although un/le monsieur is used as a common noun to mean "a/the gentleman", using the word une/la madame to mean "a/the lady" is considered childish language. Instead, une/la dame is used.
Synonyms
[edit]Derived terms
[edit]Related terms
[edit]Descendants
[edit](Some of these may be derived from Middle French.)
- Saint Dominican Creole French: mouché
- → English: monsieur
- → Fula: musel
- → Hausa: mùshê
- → Ladino: musyu
- → Ottoman Turkish: موسیو (mösyö), միւսիւ (müsü) — Armeno-Turkish
- → Romanian: musiu
- → Russian: месье́ (mesʹjé), мсьё (msʹjo)
- → Vietnamese: me-xừ
See also
[edit]Further reading
[edit]- “monsieur”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
Anagrams
[edit]Categories:
- English terms borrowed from French
- English terms derived from French
- English doublets
- English 2-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio pronunciation
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English countable nouns
- English nouns with irregular plurals
- English dated terms
- English terms with quotations
- French terms derived from Old French
- French terms derived from Latin
- French 2-syllable words
- French terms with IPA pronunciation
- French terms with audio pronunciation
- French lemmas
- French nouns
- French countable nouns
- French masculine nouns
- French terms with usage examples