English
fascine
Fascine comes from French fascine ‘bundle of kindling’, and goes back to Latin fascis.
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEfascis‘bundle of sticks, faggot, fascine’
- Latin, derivedc. 75 BCE–200 CEfascīna‘bundle of sticks’
- Old Frenchc. 842–1400faissine
- Frenchc. 1600–presentfascine‘bundle of kindling’
- Englishearliest quotation 1748same form
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed
Earlier history uncertain.
Lineage
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEfascis‘bundle of sticks, faggot, fascine’
- Latin, derivedc. 75 BCE–200 CEfascīna‘bundle of sticks’
- Old Frenchc. 842–1400faissine
- Frenchc. 1600–presentfascine‘bundle of kindling’
- Englishearliest quotation 1748same form
Earliest quotation: 1748, Tobias Smollett, London: […] [William Strahan] for J[ohn] Osborn […]: “Our forces being landed and ſtationed as I have…”
The story
The noun is borrowed from French fascine (‘bundle of kindling; bundle of branches used to build defences, fill in ditches, etc.; logs arranged horizontally between piles on the banks of a watercourse as an erosion barrier’), from Old French faissine, from Latin fascīna (‘bundle of sticks’), from fascis (‘bundle of sticks, faggot, fascine; bundle, package; burden, load’) (ultimately from a late or pseudo-Proto-Indo-European root noun *bʰask- (‘band; bundle’), actually originating from a substrate language or as an eastern Mediterranean Wanderwort) + -īna (the nominative, vocative, or ablative feminine singular of -īnus (suffix forming nouns)).
Linked words
through Latin fascis ‘bundle of sticks, faggot, fascine’
Today it means
noun Originally a cylindrical bundle of small sticks of wood, and now often a bundle of plastic pipes, bound together, and used for strengthening purposes, such as in revetments for riverbanks, and in mats for dams, jetties, etc.
Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.
Etymograph / Latin fascis / fascine