# Etymology of besotted



## Aquiba

Hello everyone,

Can anyone shed light on the etymology of " besotted" ?

I suspect it has to do with the French word "sot", which means "daft" . 
Thank you so much in advance.


----------



## Franglais1969

Welcome to the forum. 

This is what I found on My Mirosoft Encarta

*besotted *[bi  sóttid]
_adjective_ 
*1. * *infatuated: *made confused  through affection for or attraction to somebody  
*2. * *muddled: *in a confused  mental state, especially through having drunk too much alcohol  (_archaic_) 

[Late 16th century. < be- + obsolete_ sot_ 'stupefy' < Old  French, 'fool']

*It would appear you are correct. 
*


----------



## mgwls

Hello,

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, English _sot_ developed from Old English _sott_ 'foolish person' which originated from Medieval Latin _sottus_, however, in the process it was indeed reinforced by Old French _sot_.


----------



## Cilquiestsuens

mgwls said:


> Hello,
> 
> According to the Oxford English Dictionary, English _sot_ developed from Old English _sott_ 'foolish person' which originated from Medieval Latin _sottus_, however, in the process it was indeed reinforced by Old French _sot_.


 

I hope you won't mind me having a little doubt here...

As you know, the English or proto-English language was never in contact with the old Latin language. Its first real ("physical") contact with a romance language was with Old French, which remained for more than three centuries the official language and the language of the nobility of the Island. That is why English has so heavily borrowed words from French and later on from Latin.

The term Medieval Latin is misleading. It means the Latin written by priests / scholars approximately a thousand years after the language actually died out. That language is full of borrowings from other languages such as French, Italian, Greek, Arabic, etc...


----------



## berndf

Cilquiestsuens said:


> As you know, the English or proto-English language was never in contact with the old Latin language. Its first real ("physical") contact with a romance language was with Old French, which remained for more than three centuries the official language and the language of the nobility of the Island. That is why English has so heavily borrowed words from French and later on from Latin.


 
I think you are confusing _Old_ and _Middle English_ here. The Latin or Romance influence on Old English was mainly through monks using Medieval Latin and possibly through remnants of Vulgar Latin as spoken in the former Roman province of Britannia at the time of the Anglo-Saxon conquest.
 
The strong influence of French on English started only after the Norman Conquest, i.e. in the Middle English period.


----------



## Wynn Mathieson

I tend to agree with *berndf *here. "Proto-English" received at least two doses of Latin influence well before the Norman conquest.

_>> There were at least three notable periods of Latin influence. *The first* occurred before the ancestral Saxons left continental Europe for Britain. *The second *began when the Anglo-Saxons were converted to Christianity and Latin-speaking priests became widespread. The third and largest single transfer of Latin-based words happened after the Norman invasion of 1066. <<

_Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_English#Latin_influence _(my emphases)

_Wynn


----------



## se16teddy

Yes, contrary to some assumptions there was civilization in England before the Norman conquest. 

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word _sot_ is first attested in Aelfric's _Saints' Lives_, written about 1000. _Sot_ was then used in the obsolete sense _a foolish or stupid person; a fool, blockhead, dolt_. The Dictionary suggests that the word _besotted _was formed from this _sot, _but not until the 16th century.


----------



## Mr Punch

The last three posters are correct about the influence of Latin on OE.

The word 'sot' also survived in English as 'a drunk' of course, first recorded in 1580. This is just 20 years after the word 'besotted' was first recorded, suggesting there was maybe a boom in this word and playful derivations, which is interesting because I'd always assumed 'besotted' to mean something akin to 'drunk with love'! But maybe that's just me...


----------



## Mr Punch

Cilquiestsuens said:


> The term Medieval Latin is misleading. It means the Latin written by priests / scholars approximately a thousand years after the language actually died out. That language is full of borrowings from other languages such as French, Italian, Greek, Arabic, etc...


Why is that misleading? Aren't most scholars aware of this hybridization?


----------



## crimmo

The Swedish for obsession is 'besatthet'.


----------



## ThomasK

I just throw in my two pence: in Dutch (Flemish especially) we have both *zat *(standard meaning: enough, even too much - in Flemish: drunk), and _*zot *_(Flemish: crazy, sometimes even a lunatic, also the joker in the card game, etc.). Etymologiebank.nl does not refer to the same origin: 

- _zot _< Lat. _sottus_ ‘dwaas’, fool, [ca. 800; TLF]. 
- _zat _< Lat. _satis _(enough) -- all meaning ‘satisfied’, < pgm. _*sada-

_No reference to any link though...


----------



## Lugubert

crimmo said:


> The Swedish for obsession is 'besatthet'.


, which is derived from (fairly) old German _besitten_, modern G. _besitzen_: being possessed by an evil spirit etc. Cognates are Fr. _possédé_, Latin _obsessus_. No stupid _sot_, "Du latin médieval _sottus"_ (Wiktionnaire), "c'est un mot étranger qui ne vient ny de grec, ny de latin." (Etymol. des mots françois, Paris, 1661) but plain old PIE *_sed_- "sit".

ThomasK: Lat. satis is probably a descendant of PIE *sā/*sə "sättigen" (make non-hungry) (Duden Herkunftswörterbuch).


----------



## ThomasK

I checked and indeed, it means _bezeten_, obssessed in Dutch, too, but that is linked with _zitten,_ indeed. However, people who are bezeten, seem like zot in Dutch... Yet, the etymological link will indeed be non-existent. 

Thanks for the other information !


----------



## sotos

mgwls said:


> Hello,
> 
> According to the Oxford English Dictionary, ... from Medieval Latin _sottus_, ...



Could it be a corruption of the Gr. asotos (άσωτος, "lost" (son) as in  Luke, 15:11-32)?


----------



## Lugganese

The word "sottly" \ˈsɑ.tli \ stands for dear, beloved, lovely, friendly and can be taken both as a noun and an adjective. It's also originated from 'sot' but taken as a word expressing affection specially among friends. It's a new word quite not so often used and known.


----------



## Kevin Beach

Wynn Mathieson said:


> I tend to agree with *berndf *here. "Proto-English" received at least two doses of Latin influence well before the Norman conquest.
> 
> _>> There were at least three notable periods of Latin influence. *The first* occurred before the ancestral Saxons left continental Europe for Britain. *The second *began when the Anglo-Saxons were converted to Christianity and Latin-speaking priests became widespread. The third and largest single transfer of Latin-based words happened after the Norman invasion of 1066. <<
> 
> _Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_English#Latin_influence _(my emphases)
> 
> _Wynn


There was at least one other and there may be a fifth.

There was contact between the Romans and the Germanic tribes along the Rhine since before the time of Christ. I understand that there is evidence of word-borrowing both ways.

Also, if the growing theory is correct, that there was already a Germanic language (perhaps related to Belgic) spoken in Eastern Britain before the Roman conquest, then that would have been influenced by Latin and would have been a major contributor to what we regard as Old English.


----------



## Ben Jamin

In Norwegian there is a word “sott”, originating from Old Norse   “sótt” , meaning “sick”.


----------



## berndf

Kevin Beach said:


> There was contact between the Romans and the Germanic tribes along the Rhine since before the time of Christ. I understand that there is evidence of word-borrowing both ways.
> 
> Also, if the growing theory is correct, that there was already a Germanic language (perhaps related to Belgic) spoken in Eastern Britain before the Roman conquest, then that would have been influenced by Latin and would have been a major contributor to what we regard as Old English.


"Contact" is maybe a bit of an understatement. Romans tried to make _Germania_ a Roman province (and partially succeed and partially failed) since to time of Caesar and in the course of this suffered the their biggest military defeat ever before the downfall of the Western empire in the 5th century AD where three entire legions were completely destroyed in a single battle in 9AD.

There certainly were borrowings in those days and the Germanic dialect continuum was probably still homogeneous enough that those borrowings could spread to all dialects. An example of this is the word _wine _(< _vinum_) which can be found in practically all old Germanic (OE, OSax., OHG, ON, Goth., ...) languages.

We don't really need any dodgy theories about alleged pre-Roman Germanic colonization of Southern Britain (_The only safe conclusion can be that the Belgic migration (if any) would have added continental ancestry to southern England, not specifically Germanic ancestry._, Härke, 2008, see also this forum contribution by the author).


----------



## ThomasK

One last question as for me: can anyone explain NOR _sott_, ENG _sottly_, GrE _asotos _etymologically  and tell us whether there could be a link ? I'd consider &, 2 fairly plausible.


----------



## fdb

sotos said:


> Could it be a corruption of the Gr. asotos (άσωτος, "lost" (son) as in  Luke, 15:11-32)?



ἄσωτος is α + σωτος ‘not to be saved’. It has no connection with the other words discussed here.


----------



## mataripis

this word is related to "Sutil" maybe from Spanish language.It has the meaning "persistent even rejected many times".  The word of Greek "Sotiria" (saviour) has something to do with the word persistence.


----------



## sotos

fdb said:


> ἄσωτος is α + σωτος ‘not to be saved’. It has no connection with the other words discussed here.



I forgot to explain that the w. α-σωτος, in medieval and modern Gr. mean "foolish, unscrupulous". (The opposite of my username  ).


----------

