Home " Toponymy " What exactly does the term Joux mean, as in the Col de Joux Plane?

What exactly does the term Joux mean, as in the Col de Joux Plane?

Joux is a fairly common place name in an area stretching from the Jura to the Savoies. It refers to a wooded area (see the beautiful pleonasm "la Forêt de Joux" in the Jura). We are familiar with "Joux-Plane" or "Joux Verte".

There are many references to the meaning of this place name, starting with the "Glossaire des termes dialectaux" published by the IGN, which states: "Joux: feminine name, mountain wooded mostly with conifers".

Another work indicating the meaning of joux: "Noms de lieux de Suisse Romande, Savoie et environs" which reads: Joux (nom féminin) Old local word for a high forest in mountainous regions. Variants from Old French: jeur, jore, joure, jure, etc., from medieval Latin: juria, jurim, joria(...) Gallic: jor, juris: "wooded height" (...)

Don't confuse "joux" and "joug". It's not just a question of spelling but also of gender: Joux is a feminine name and Joug a masculine name, which clearly distinguishes these two toponyms and their meanings cannot be confused. It is rare, in toponymy, for a masculine and a feminine word to designate the same thing (source IGN).

 "Joug" comes from the Latin "jugum" and is not used as a place name, unlike Joch (German) and Giogo (Italian), which refer to mountain passes, no doubt by analogy with the shape of a yoke.

In Old French, the term "joug" did not refer to a form of land either, but to an agrarian surface (ploughed in a given time by a pair of oxen). It seems that in France, the term "joug" did not derive, by analogy, from the description of a form of relief but from a unit of surface area.

" .... a wooded mountain but Joux Plane is made up of grassland? "

A place name has a long life. The forest so designated may have disappeared long ago as land was cleared, but the name of the place has remained.
In fact, that's the whole point of toponymy: it sheds light on the past uses of a particular place, because they have remained in the memory of the names.

René Poty