Word of the While IV
Jun. 3rd, 2025 04:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
de_eekhoornThe current word of the while is without question the French s'inféoder, which means to accept a feudal relationship to an overlord or other instance; the literal translation would be to enfeudalize one's self. Isn't that cool?
I came across this word in a book on the daily life in medieval monasteries, La Vie des Religieux au Moyen Age by Léo Moulin; I suspect the author of being slightly more literary than literal in his usage, in which s'inféoder refers to individual monasteries that are part of a larger monastic order. The style of the book is that flavor of French Literary that abounds with the kind of semi-figurative synonyms that Orwell would disapprove of: three of my indicator species for this style (jalonner, 'to mark out, as dots mark out a dotted line'; pavoiser, 'to bedeck'; s'épanouir, 'to spread out, like a gas or a fragrance') can be found on this very same page.
I came across this word in a book on the daily life in medieval monasteries, La Vie des Religieux au Moyen Age by Léo Moulin; I suspect the author of being slightly more literary than literal in his usage, in which s'inféoder refers to individual monasteries that are part of a larger monastic order. The style of the book is that flavor of French Literary that abounds with the kind of semi-figurative synonyms that Orwell would disapprove of: three of my indicator species for this style (jalonner, 'to mark out, as dots mark out a dotted line'; pavoiser, 'to bedeck'; s'épanouir, 'to spread out, like a gas or a fragrance') can be found on this very same page.
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Date: 2025-06-23 12:02 pm (UTC)Very cool word.
I see it's still (widely but in a specialised context) used non-reflexively in modern French in the context of ecosystems and biodiversity (espèces inféodées = species that are tied to a particular habitat or to another species).
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Date: 2025-06-24 12:20 pm (UTC)