kwaw
I have summarised here some posts from another thread:
From French-English dictionary:
Taraire. as Tariere.
Tarault. as Tariere; also as Tarots.
Tariere:f. An augur.
Related words are:
Tarelle: f. An augur.
Tarelet:. m. A little augur.
Tarots:m. A kind of great cards, whereon many several things are
figured, which make them much more intricate than ordinary ones.
From:
A Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues
Compiled by Randle Cotgrave
London
Printed by Adam Islip
Anno 1611
Available online here:
http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/cotgrave/
Note however, 'tariere' a'boiste' means a 'wimble', which is
an 'auger', that is a hand tool for boring holes. So we are looking at a word meaning auger [hole borer] not at 'augur' as in divination. Tariere/tarots would thus seem to be related to the modern French:
Taraud: n.m - screw tap
Taraudage: n.m - tapping a hole for a screw; threaded hole
Tarauder (v) tap (a hole for a screw); (Literature) torment.
To propose this as a serious suggestion for the origin of the word 'Tarot' we need to show some plausible connection between the old French word and card games.
Following up on a suggestion by Diane O'Donovan that there maybe relevance of the 'hole-borer' and to Cribbage games, I learnt cribbage is related to the older game 'noddy':
http://www.tradgames.org.uk/games/Cribbage.htm
and 'noddy' in English was of course a sysnonym for 'fool', related to the Italian 'noddo':
Noddo - a noddy, a gull, a sot, a foole.
As defined in John Florio's Italian - English dictionary Queen Anna's New World of Words (1611)
In a roundabout way one of the titles of the fool card [le fou] takes
us back to the word 'tarot' as auger, a 'hole borer'.
'Fou' in Cotgrave's French-English dictionary is given as a
corruption of 'Fors', out of doors, abroad, [as in 'buvet fou', drink
out, 'venez fou', come out].
The Italian for the French word 'Fors/Fou' is 'Fora'.
In Florio's Italian-English dictionary 'Fora' means not only outside,
abroad; but an auger [a borer, a piercer, a wimble]. Which as we have
shown was also called in French, Tarault, Tariere, Tarot.
Italian Fora also related to the French:
Foré: m. ée: f. Bored, pierced; wherein holes are made.
Forer: To bore, pierce, make holes in.
[Definitions from: Randle Cotgrave 'A Dictionary of the French and
English Tongues' (1611)]
To make a hole is to create an empty space - like zero, or 'nulla' as
steele describes the function of the fool?
The cribbage board itself can perhaps be traced back the much older mancala board:
http://www.tradgames.org.uk/games/Mancala.htm
So the relationship maybe to a game in which one 'pegs holes', ie, a point scoring game.
Kwaw
From French-English dictionary:
Taraire. as Tariere.
Tarault. as Tariere; also as Tarots.
Tariere:f. An augur.
Related words are:
Tarelle: f. An augur.
Tarelet:. m. A little augur.
Tarots:m. A kind of great cards, whereon many several things are
figured, which make them much more intricate than ordinary ones.
From:
A Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues
Compiled by Randle Cotgrave
London
Printed by Adam Islip
Anno 1611
Available online here:
http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/cotgrave/
Note however, 'tariere' a'boiste' means a 'wimble', which is
an 'auger', that is a hand tool for boring holes. So we are looking at a word meaning auger [hole borer] not at 'augur' as in divination. Tariere/tarots would thus seem to be related to the modern French:
Taraud: n.m - screw tap
Taraudage: n.m - tapping a hole for a screw; threaded hole
Tarauder (v) tap (a hole for a screw); (Literature) torment.
To propose this as a serious suggestion for the origin of the word 'Tarot' we need to show some plausible connection between the old French word and card games.
Following up on a suggestion by Diane O'Donovan that there maybe relevance of the 'hole-borer' and to Cribbage games, I learnt cribbage is related to the older game 'noddy':
http://www.tradgames.org.uk/games/Cribbage.htm
and 'noddy' in English was of course a sysnonym for 'fool', related to the Italian 'noddo':
Noddo - a noddy, a gull, a sot, a foole.
As defined in John Florio's Italian - English dictionary Queen Anna's New World of Words (1611)
In a roundabout way one of the titles of the fool card [le fou] takes
us back to the word 'tarot' as auger, a 'hole borer'.
'Fou' in Cotgrave's French-English dictionary is given as a
corruption of 'Fors', out of doors, abroad, [as in 'buvet fou', drink
out, 'venez fou', come out].
The Italian for the French word 'Fors/Fou' is 'Fora'.
In Florio's Italian-English dictionary 'Fora' means not only outside,
abroad; but an auger [a borer, a piercer, a wimble]. Which as we have
shown was also called in French, Tarault, Tariere, Tarot.
Italian Fora also related to the French:
Foré: m. ée: f. Bored, pierced; wherein holes are made.
Forer: To bore, pierce, make holes in.
[Definitions from: Randle Cotgrave 'A Dictionary of the French and
English Tongues' (1611)]
To make a hole is to create an empty space - like zero, or 'nulla' as
steele describes the function of the fool?
The cribbage board itself can perhaps be traced back the much older mancala board:
http://www.tradgames.org.uk/games/Mancala.htm
So the relationship maybe to a game in which one 'pegs holes', ie, a point scoring game.
Kwaw