Word of the Week: January 15, 2001
Gorging Gourmets

No one really knows where the word gourmand comes from. It appeared in English in the late 15th and early 16th centuries as a term for someone who is overly fond of eating--a glutton. We can trace it to the French, where the first usage found is from 1354, but there the story ends.

In French a gourmand is not always a glutton, but rather just someone who is very fond of food. Given that gourmand and gourmet start with the same letters and both are words for someone who eats, you would think that the two words are related. That tempting hypothesis is problematic, however, because the word gourmet has an altogether different pedigree. It is from a French root meaning "valet" and is akin to our word groom (the original French root was groumet, but the r moved). With a little alliterative imagination, and just for fun, we can come up with silly phrases like "gorgeous but gluttonous gourmet gourmands gutturally gorge on gorp with gulosity." But gourmets normally are not gourmands and gourmands are not gourmets.

Words of the Week are written by Dr. Jacques A. Bailly.