mensongen.

Etymology: < Middle French, French mensonge lie (12th cent.; late 14th-cent. as a name for falsehood personified; compare Anglo-Norman mensonge ) < a vulgar Latin form approximating to *mentionica < post-classical Latin mention- , mentio lie (6th cent.; of disputed origin: see note) + -ica -ic suffix. Sense 2 represents a secondary borrowing < French.The form Mensonge in quot. c1450 at sense 1 is supplied from Glasgow University Library manuscript Hunter 239. Cambridge University Library manuscript Ff. 5. 30 has mensoige (glossed gabbinge ) in the first sentence, and mensonge altered to mensoige in the second; the form in -oige is perhaps after the Old French form mensoigne (which, like Italian menzogna , is < a vulgar Latin form approximating to *mentionia ). The standard modern edition of the Middle French Pelerinage has Menconge at this point. According to the traditional view, post-classical Latin mentio ‘lie’ derives by haplology < classical Latin mentītiō ‘falsehood’ (see mentition n.), but the identification of this word is uncertain, and it has been suggested that post-classical Latin mentio ‘lie’ represents instead a semantic development < classical Latin mentiō mention n., perhaps via the concept of a ‘lying mention’. See Französisches Etymol. Wörterbuch s.v. mentio for a detailed discussion.