nonchalant
/ˌnɑnʃəˈlɑnt/adjective, adverb
calmly unconcerned or showing little interest
From Latin, via Old French and English non- (not) + O.French, from Latin calēre chaloir (to have concern for).
Lineage
non-
chaloir
The story
There is a little temperature shift hidden inside this cool-sounding word: Latin calēre meant “to be hot,” and its French descendant chaloir came to mean “to care about.” Add non-, “not,” and French speakers had nonchaloir—literally, not to care. English borrowed nonchalant from French, with the word recorded in 1734. The same French root appears in chaland, meaning “customer” or “client”—someone with an interest in buying. So a nonchalant person is, etymologically, someone who has let the heat of concern go out.
Modern usage
Indifferent or uninterested, sometimes notably calm in a tense situation.
- Heard in
- informal usage · online slang
- See
- Urban Dictionary entries describing an unconcerned demeanor
Words from the same roots
non- · Latin, via Old French and English, ‘not; absence of or negation of something’
Derivednonconformist, non-consensual, nonfiction, nonsense
chaloir · Old French, from Latin calēre, ‘to have concern for; ultimately “to be hot”’
Derivedchaland, nonchalant
Sources
- Etymonlinenonchalant, non-, disciple, pipsqueak, body
- Urban Dictionarynonchalant
- Wikipedianonchalant
- Wiktionarynonchalant, non-