Don't we have the impression of speaking a popular French, slang, when we use this adverbial expression meaning "
roughly, without going into detail, at first glance
"?
Notwithstanding, according to Littré, we are indeed dealing with an antiquity of the medieval vocabulary of the 14th century, composed of the ablative of
grossus
, “
gros
” and of
modus
, “
manner
”, “
manner
”.
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We can see it in the following text, translated into contemporary French, extract from the
Treaty of Surgery
of Master Henri de Mondeville, surgeon of King Philippe le Bel, written in the year 1314 and kept in the Latin collections of the BnF:
"Now it is impossible to know the part perfectly, if one does not know at least roughly the whole, it is impossible to be a good surgeon if one does not know the most important principles and generalities of medicine. "
However, other sources only place it in the 16th century, in 1566, in the
Preparatory Treatise for the Apology
for Hérodote by Henri Estienne.
Note:
roughly
or
roughly
depending on the period.
Its hyphen disappeared around 1932. It has been adopted by many European languages.