espoir (French)

Where does "espoir" come from?

The French noun 'espoir' originated as a deverbal formation directly derived from the verb 'espérer.' This transformation embodies the essence of 'hope,' evolving from the action of hoping into the noun that describes the state itself.

Full etymology tree

• espoir (French), 'hope'
  • deverbal espérer (Old French), 'to hope'
    • inherited spērāre (Latin), 'inflection of spērō:'

Updated June 2026

More words starting with E

Etymology data from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · About Miraris