accoutre

Note: If the etymon behind accoutrer is *accō(n)sūtūrāre (>*accōs(ŭ)tūrāre?), the sense development is presumably from "sew together, mend" to "prepare, trim, adorn." The phonetic development is more difficult; the assumption is that the tonic form would be *acostur (1. singular) and the weak form nous acostrons, with the weak form being generalized throughout the paradigm. The longer form is evidenced in 13th-century racousturer, "to stitch up (a wound), mend (a garment)" (unless this verb is built independently on cousture). Such a development is possible, but it has been pointed out that verbs derived from nouns in -ūra tend to preserve the -ū-: amesurer, afaiturer, empasturer (though most such verbs clearly do not date back to earlier Gallo-Romance or Vulgar Latin). An alternative explanation sees accoutrer as a derivative of coutre, "coulter, blade (of a plow)," in which case the -s- in acoustrer would be hypercorrection ([s] in this position having disappeared by the 14th century); but the semantic development of such a verb is hardly transparent.