When did this French word become an insult? (Updated)

[mottleyfool]

I have a character who is referring to someone she dislikes, slipping occasionally into French. I rather like the word "blaireau" for tone and sound, but I am not sure how early it was used in its contemporary insulting meaning. The older French-English dictionaries I have found from the late 1800's only give its literal meanings as "badger" or "

Comments

[anonymous]

How early? 20s?

[mottleyfool]

1930's.

[orange_fell]

I'll add the 1930s tag; you might want to put that information in the body of the post too.

[anonymous]

http://archive.org/stream/dictionnairehist00larcuoft/dictionnairehist00larcuoft_djvu.txt Has an 1880 reference of blaireau equating to simpleton, so you should be fine with anything in the 20th century.

[mottleyfool]

The speaker is francophone Belgian.

[ignescent_fic]

http://archive.org/stream/dictionnairehist00larcuoft/dictionnairehist00larcuoft_djvu.txt Was published in 1880 and has a reference to blaireau being an animal that can refer to people who are simpletons...

[mottleyfool]

Thanks! That is a great resource, but presents other problems. I understood the modern meaning to be the equivalent of "Jerk" or "Asshole" in English. The person in question is very obnoxious, but not a fool or simpleton. More complicated than I thought. Maybe I'll just choose a different term.

[ignescent_fic]

modern argot lists it as idiot / imbicile, but includes contempt - stupid seems to have more negative implications in french than in english.

[orange_fell]

You might also try posting this question over at linguaphiles. It's still a pretty active community and I know there are some francophones there.

[mottleyfool]

Thank you!