Learn English – Etymology of the word “broker”

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I’ve had this personal hypothesis in the back of my mind for many years now about the etymology of the word “broker”.

I have gathered a few pieces of the puzzle (many of them in French and a few of them in English) but I have no firm evidence to back it.

Now that I've come across EL&U, with its high concentration of English Language enthusiasts of all horizons, I’d like to request some assistance, especially regarding the English side of the story.

Many English etymological dictionaries qualify the origin of “broker” as uncertain, and others are just content with mentioning immediate ancestors of the modern word. But there is possibly a more captivating story to this particular word.

In my opinion broker comes from brooch/broach. Here is why.

  • In French the word for “broche”
    covers 2 English words: “brooch” (the
    jewel) and “broach” (roasting spit).
    In a larger sense, a “broche” is any
    spiky tool used for piercing.
  • One of these broaches, shaped like a
    “T”, with a drill-bit like end, was
    used during wine auctions to pierce
    sample barrels so that potential
    buyers could taste the wine and make
    their best buying offer according to
    the quality of the beverage.
  • Incidentally the French term for the
    pitcher that would be placed below
    the subsequently inserted tap is
    “broc” (nb, origin: uncertain in the
    wiktionary
    entry)    .
  • Also well documented is the fact that
    the person in charge of piercing the
    hole is the “brocheur” (or
    “broceur”).

My conjecture is that this man was also in charge of the auction, hence the “broker”. He would serve as a “broker” between the seller and the buyers. Although it seems logical, I've found this explanation nowhere.

So my questions are:

  1. Could you please provide some English words, idioms, citations or
    reference that could possibly back
    this conjecture?

  2. Or do we have an altogether
    completely different etymology, I might have missed ?

That's the main question. However I have also a couple of secondary requests, that could actually help reaching a conclusion.

  1. I’ve also tried to find some genre
    paintings (in the taste of
    Netherlands Golden Age genre
    paintings) but with no success so
    far.
  2. Also of interest would be to know
    whether there were English wine
    brokers (medieval England had a lot
    of vineyards) or whether the
    “broker” meaning was imported from
    the French “brocheur”, in which case
    one would have to admit that this
    meaning was lost, since French eventually
    borrowed the English word.

Best Answer

Looking in the OED, I see support for the wine-cask-piercing tool origin, but not for the origin clearly involving one in charge of an auction. There is a connection to wine selling, and this might be close to what you are theorizing.

Etymology: Middle English brocor, -our, brokour, < Anglo-Norman brocour (also broggour) = Old Northern French brokeor ( < Latin type *broccātōrem), nominative brokiere ( < Latin *broccātor) of which Godefroy has one example explained by him as ‘celui qui vend du vin au broc’, as to the precise sense of which see below. The Central French equivalent was brocheor, brochière; and the word is the agent noun of the Old French vb. brochier, Old Northern French brokier ( < Latin *broccāre) in the sense ‘to broach’ or ‘tap’ a cask. Brocheor, brokeor stand in precisely the same relation to the n. broche, broc, and the vb. brochier, brokier, as tapster or rather the earlier tapper stand to the n. tap, and vb. to tap in Teutonic: the brocheor, brokeor, brokour, or broker, was lit. a tapster, who retailed wine ‘from the tap’, and hence, by extension, any retail-dealer, one who bought to sell over again, a second-hand dealer, or who bought for another, hence a jobber, middleman, agent, etc. Compare sense of Latin caupo.

The Romanic vb. broccare was evidently < brocco, brocca in the sense of ‘spike, piercing instrument’ ( < Latin broccus, brocca adj.: see broach n.1). But these nouns appear to have afterwards had their sense modified from the verb, so that in the Old French vendre à broke, or à broche, in modern French vendre à broc, the sense passed from ‘broach’, to ‘broaching, tapping’, and at length to ‘the quantity of wine drawn at a broaching or tapping’, and hence ‘the jug or vessel which held this’, as in modern French broc (from 5 to 10 litres). Anglo-Norman had also a derivative form abrocour, and there were Anglo-Latin words abrocator, abrocamentum; also brocarius ‘proxeneta, interpres et consiliarius contractuum’, and abrocarius. Brocarius appears to have been formed on the n. (broc(c)a, broc(c)us); abrocarius must have been formed on the apparent analogy of brocator, abrocator.

The earliest usages have already lost any connection to wine tapping or selling.

1377 Langland Piers Plowman B. v. 130 Amonges Burgeyses haue I be dwellynge at Londoun, And gert bakbitinge be a brocoure [C. brocor] to blame mennes ware.

1393 Langland Piers Plowman C. vii. 95 Ȝut am ich brocor of bakbytynge · and blame mennes ware.

1582 R. Stanyhurst tr. Virgil First Foure Bookes Æneis i. 14 For gould his carcasse was sold by the broker Achilles.

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