SC - Surviving Estrella War

[Mordonna22@aol.com]

At 13:44 -0700 2001-01-26, James Prescott wrote:
> At 08:56 -0600 2001-01-26, Decker, Terry D. wrote:
> > But the OED is "English," and does not necessarily apply to the French.
> 
> Quite true.  I noted it to show that by 1380 in England the 
> word 'squire' had acquired a non-gentry usage.  I don't have 
> etymological French dictionaries at home, so I can't give you 
> right now a date for the similar usage in France.

Toddled off to the university library to look through their big 
French dictionaries and their Old French dictionaries.

In summary, the usage of 'écuyer' meaning a senior servant, 
without military or gentry implications, has citations as 
early as 1174-76, though my favourite dictionary gives an 
earliest citation of 1340.

Interestingly, one of the dictionaries puts the usage of 
'écuyer' in the sense of trainee knight as _later_ than its 
use in the sense of senior servant.  Not what I would have 
guessed.

The usage of 'écuyer' in the sense of horseman, which it 
acquired through confusion with similar sounding equestrian 
words, is modern.


One of the dictionaries interprets "écuyer de cuisine" (which 
I have been translating literally as "squire of the kitchen") 
as "maistre cuisinier", meaning "master cook".


- -- 
All my best,
Thorvald Grimsson / James Prescott <prescotj at telusplanet.net> (PGP user)