Police....

Haven't seen you for a while, furs. Welcome back!

Thanks, Vinny. In fact, I am still so out of touch that didn't even realize that someone else had already given the Greek word for Police...
Cheers,
F

as far as i know 'police' (or 'polizei') means 'town' or 'government' in the ancient greek language. an image of what the german word 'polizei' means i cannot describe. i believe that 'polizei' is re-derived from the english language. mostly words travelled from french (latin), (ancient greek) or german (maybe slavic) into english (GB, USA, AUS, CA) during the last six hundred years. there is other organisations which have different names such as 'bundsgrenzschutz' (the 'federal border patrol' (- or police)) securing the former border to eastern (communist) germany as well as to czechoslovakia. today 'bundesgrenzschutz' is called 'bundespolizei', the 'federal police' securing airports, trainstations as well as mass-protest-events. spanish 'guardia civil' same as the 'carabinieri' or the dutch marechaussee have a diffenent duty than policework (securing traffic accident sites, to write/process parking tickets, to go on neighbourhood-crime-watch). mostly special "polizei"-branches (not "polizei"-units) are beeing called when gangs or certain (known/unknown) groups of considerable "negative persons" are planning (or fulfilling) to steal/rob, to attack or to trespass. the 'guardia civil', same as 'koninklijke marechaussee' (or in the USA, FBI agents) tend not to argue or to discuss with "the opposite".

the police (in germany) always has to negotiate and to discuss with german/foreign citizens.

'super from cologne in germany

Police is police in France, not gendarmerie. Gendarmes are part of the military and have a highway patrol function, as well as maintaining order on a national level.

Now, maréchaussée is a more interesting word, which is a different term for the gendarmerie, and it contains the word 'road' (chaussée) in the name.

According to the Petit Robert:

"étym. 1718; mareschaucie xiie ◊ de maréchal
❖

■ Anciennt Sous l'Ancien Régime, Corps de cavaliers placé sous les ordres d'un prévôt des maréchaux, et chargé des fonctions de la gendarmerie actuelle. Les archers de la maréchaussée.
◆ (1899) Mod. et plaisant Gendarmerie."

So apparently "chaussée" being in the word is either coincidence, or folk etymology.

The English equivalent is Marshalsea.

Ha of course. Didn't occur to me (I seem to be saying that a lot lately).

#33, according to the german wikipedia, 'marechaussee' means and is the predecessor of the french 'gendarmerie nationale'. 'maréchaussée des voyages et chasses' is the historic name of the organisations known today as 'koninklijke marechaussee'. it is an organisation close to the military, in germany situated maybe in between the 'feldjäger' (the german military police) and the bundespolizei (the federal police).

'super from cologne