Is 'Jejune' An English Word?

[sandyRoe]

It's the first on a list of words here that wouldn't be much help to anyone learning English?

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1GzQcn4ssn/

[ToraToraTora]

don't be niave!

[barry1010]

Yes, it is in my hardback Collins dictionary 

[davebro3]

NAIVE even...🤣

[Khandro]

It's a French word which has been adopted by the English language - like so many others.

[1ozzy]

TWAU Dave

[albaqwerty]

From the Latin, "jejunus"

[wolf63]

I've never seen nor heard of the word.

 

[naomi24]

I'd hazard a guess that none of those words would be of much use to a foreigner.  Few of the indigenous would know what he was talking about.

[sandyRoe]

Is it similar in meaning to ingenue?

I used to peregrinate, but no more.  This is another on the list.

[ToraToraTora]

10:07 it means naive sandy you know like someone who thinks Hamas are freedom fighters for example.

[sandyRoe]

Didn't take long for a light hearted thread to be dragged into the gutter.

[sandyRoe]

Trying to drag up some more recherche words from the back of my memory, this phrase from a film came to mind: 'Gosh, I'm gauche.'

It must have been uttered by the ingénue, but while I remember the line I can't recall the film.

[Khandro]

It is word I often use, even on AB! It has the same root as 'lunch' in French - déjeuner,  but the full meaning is, as I have always understood it, to be 'without lunch' in other words to be hungry, empty of something.  

[Peter Pedant]

Hi Sandy nice to see you reposting. after the hammering you have recently taken ( all in the best parsible taste etc)

jejune is from the latin Jejunus - empty and is used as metaphor ( as a silly fellow or girl) - 

also part of the gut which post portem is usually found empty

( jejunu,)

you  asked

[Peter Pedant]

Didn't take long for a light hearted thread to be dragged into the gutter. - sandy you know the rules  about insulting other as applied in er an erratic manner.

anyway TTT gets his share of being hammered and by God doesnt he squawk !

[david small]

French, like the kiss.

[Atheist]

Joyce's Ulysses opens with the entrance of Buck Mulligan the jejune Jesuit.

[Atheist]

ynna... might be pleased to hear me bragging. I knew them all (but I don't use them very often).

[davebro3]

^^^ liar

[Buenchico]

The earliest recorded usage of 'jejune' in the English language is in 1615, meaning (as defined by the OED) 'Unsatisfying to the mind or soul; dull, flat, insipid, bald, dry, uninteresting; meagre, scanty, thin, poor; wanting in substance or solidity. Said of thought, feeling, action, etc., and esp. of speech or writing; also transferred of the speaker or writer. (The prevailing sense.)'.  

In its current usage as 'Deficient in nourishing or substantial (physical) qualities; thin, attenuated, scanty; meagre, unsatisfying; (of land) poor, barren', the first recorded usage is in 1646.

It's not until 1898 that it appears meaning 'Puerile, childish; also, naïve', with the OED noting that "This use may owe its origin to the mistaken belief that the word is connected with Latin juvenis young (comparative junior), or French jeune young".

Contrary to what's been suggested above, the word hasn't come to us via French at all but is borrowed directly from the Latin 'jējūnus', meaning 'fasting'.