Timeline for gourmand and gourmet
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
6 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Oct 19, 2013 at 23:44 | comment | added | Colin Fine | WS2: I agree that it is likely that gourmet and gourmand are ultimately related. I would not find it at all remarkable that they be unrelated to gout, with which they share just two sounds, nd which had an 's' in Old French. They might be, but I would require stronger evidence than a surmise. | |
| Oct 19, 2013 at 20:47 | comment | added | FumbleFingers | @Tim: I don't really know! In the entry for "grummet" (cited as possible source of gourmet), OED says it's A ship's boy; a cabin-boy; the boy required to form part of the crew of every ship formerly provided by the Cinque Ports. Personally, I only know grummet as a (often, slightly affectionate) local dialectal term for a socially inept/awkward adolescent boy in my native Sussex. | |
| Oct 19, 2013 at 20:46 | comment | added | WS2 | @FumbleFingers Well, the OED does provide a link from gourmet to grummet, meaning 'ship's boy', simply saying 'compare'. But the connection could be the other way. i.e the boy was called a grummet because he was employed as a 'gourmet'. The overall sense you get from the OED is that 'gourmet' simply comes from the French word of the same spelling. Whilst the OED doesn't indicate any connection to 'gout', it would seem remarkable that the first three letters of all these words associated with taste began with the same three letters, if they were not connected in some way. | |
| Oct 19, 2013 at 20:37 | comment | added | Tim | @FumbleFingers: what is "captain's boy"? | |
| Oct 19, 2013 at 20:26 | comment | added | FumbleFingers | OED gives no indication that either word has any connection with gout=taste. They do say that gourmet is related to Spanish grumete=ship's-boy (and perhaps Anglo-Norman gromet=groom). Maybe the original reason for having a "captain's boy" wasn't so much about providing sexual gratification at sea as it was about having someone taste the captain's food to make sure it was safe to eat. | |
| Oct 19, 2013 at 20:14 | history | answered | WS2 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |