English
soufflé
Soufflé comes from French souffler ‘to puff’, and goes back to Latin flō ‘to breathe, blow’.
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEflō‘to breathe, blow’
- Latin, derivedc. 75 BCE–200 CEsuffloas sufflāre‘to blow, puff up, inflate’
- Old Frenchc. 842–1400sofler
- Frenchc. 1600–presentsouffler‘to puff’
- French, derivedc. 1600–presentsoufflé
- Englishearliest quotation 1912soufflé
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor
Earlier history uncertain.
Lineage
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEflō‘to breathe, blow’
- Latin, derivedc. 75 BCE–200 CEsuffloas sufflāre‘to blow, puff up, inflate’
- Old Frenchc. 842–1400sofler
- Frenchc. 1600–presentsouffler‘to puff’
- French, derivedc. 1600–presentsoufflé
- Englishearliest quotation 1912soufflé
Earliest quotation: 1912, Book Review Digest: “Feeling that he must bring his subject down to…”
Linked words
through Proto-Indo-European *bʰleh₁-
blow, blast, bliss, bladder, flux, fluent, feeble, confluence, fluency, blithely, blare, blather, fluvial, blasé, bleat, 45 more
through Latin flō ‘to breathe, blow’
Today it means
noun A baked dish made from beaten egg whites and various other ingredients, usually prepared and served in a small earthenware bowl (ramekin).
Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.
Etymograph / Latin flō / soufflé