oui
See also: ouï
English
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /wiː/
- Rhymes: -iː
French
Etymology
[1380]; from Old French oïl (1100), compound of o (affirmative particle) (compare Occitan òc (“yes”)) and il (“he”), akin to o-je (“I”), o-tu (“thou”), o nos (“we”), o vos (“you”), all ‘yes’ constructed with pronouns.[1] O and òc are both from Latin hoc (“this”). It may correspond to a Vulgar Latin construction *hoc ille. Compare Portuguese isso ‘yes, yeah’, literally ‘this, that’. And the semantic shift is calqued on Gaulish: Compare fellow Celtic languages such as Old Irish tó ‘yes’, Welsh do ‘indeed’, from Proto-Indo-European *tod (“this, that”).[2]
Antonyms
Usage notes
This word is treated as if it has an aspirated h despite not being written with an h.
Antonyms
Descendants
- Maori: Wīwī (“France”)
See also
- si ("yes" used to contradict a negative statement or question)
References
Further reading
- “oui” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).
Norman
Etymology
From Old French oïl, a contraction of o il, from Vulgar Latin hoc ille.
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