Etymology

Le Havre

Today it means: A city and major port beside the mouth of the River Seine in Seine-Maritime department, Normandy, northern France. Full definition →

French Le Havre
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The story

  1. French · borrowed fromLe Havre“The Harbor”
  2. English todayLe Havre

Borrowed from French Le Havre (“The Harbor”), a 19th-century French clipping of Le Havre-de-Grâce (“The Harbor of Grace”), a combination of its earlier Norman name Hable (“Harbor”) and the short-lived name Ville-de-Grâce, which it bore following its 1517 refounding by Francis I, referencing the supposedly miraculous icon of the Virgin Mary acquired by Cambrai Cathedral in 1450 and known in French as Notre-Dame de Grâce. Nearby Honfleur had similarly named its cathedral (subsequently destroyed by a landslide) in its honor.

Words from the same roots

FrenchLe Havre all →

Havre

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.