Bouxwiller (; german: Buchsweiler; gsw, Buxwiller, label= Alemannic German, or ) is a

commune A commune is an alternative term for an intentional community. Commune or comună or comune or other derivations may also refer to: Administrative-territorial entities * Commune (administrative division), a municipality or township ** Communes of ...

in the

Haut-Rhin Haut-Rhin (, ; Alsatian: ''Owerelsàss'' or '; german: Oberelsass, ) is a department in the Grand Est region of France, bordering both Germany and Switzerland. It is named after the river Rhine. Its name means ''Upper Rhine''. Haut-Rhin is th ...

department,

Alsace Alsace (, ; ; Low Alemannic German/ gsw-FR, Elsàss ; german: Elsass ; la, Alsatia) is a cultural region and a territorial collectivity in eastern France, on the west bank of the upper Rhine next to Germany and Switzerland. In 2020, it had ...

Grand Est Grand Est (; gsw-FR, Grossa Oschta; Moselle Franconian/ lb, Grouss Osten; Rhine Franconian: ''Groß Oschte''; german: Großer Osten ; en, "Great East") is an administrative region in Northeastern France. It superseded three former administra ...

, France.

Toponymy

''Puxuvilare'' is the earliest spelling of the town, as mentioned in 724. In 737, ''Buxwilari'' and ''Buxovillare'' were used. Eventually, ''Buchsweiler'' became the standard German spelling. The spelling of the town is ''Busswiller'' in Alsatian. The current spelling of the town's name dates to the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in coup of 18 Brumaire, November 1799. Many of its ...

. In 1792, the German spelling ''Buchsweiler''—sometimes seen as ''Bouxweiler''—was officially replaced with its French equivalent ''Bouxwiller'', then Bouxviller in 1793. During the German annexation of Alsace from 1871 to 1918 and German annexation between 1940 and 1944, the town reverted to its German spelling Buchsweiler. The name of the town is composed of two elements: Boux- and -willer. The suffix -willer is the French spelling of the German -weiler, which derives from the Medieval

Old High German Old High German (OHG; german: Althochdeutsch (Ahd.)) is the earliest stage of the German language, conventionally covering the period from around 750 to 1050. There is no standardised or supra-regional form of German at this period, and Old High ...

suffix -willer, which in turn is derived from the

Low Latin Late Latin ( la, Latinitas serior) is the scholarly name for the form of Literary Latin of late antiquity.Roberts (1996), p. 537. English dictionary definitions of Late Latin date this period from the , and continuing into the 7th century in ...

word ''villare'' and means "agricultural land". The first element of the name, Boux-, is likely representative of the Germanic name ''Bucco'', as toponyms incorporating the suffix -willer was typically combined with a personal name as the first element. The letter 'X' represents the letters 'ks', of which the 's' is the

Saxon genitive In English, possessive words or phrases exist for nouns and most pronouns, as well as some noun phrases. These can play the roles of determiners (also called possessive adjectives when corresponding to a pronoun) or of nouns. For nouns, noun ph ...

that frequently appeared in toponyms in the region in the late Middle Ages. Thus, a probable meaning of the town's name is "Bucco's land". An alternative folk etymology of the town name is that the name is a combination of ''Buchs''-, the German word for

Buxus ''Buxus'' is a genus of about seventy species in the family Buxaceae. Common names include box or boxwood. The boxes are native to western and southern Europe, southwest, southern and eastern Asia, Africa, Madagascar, northernmost South ...

(boxwood), and -willer, thus meaning "land of boxwood". However, this origin is improbable considering the use of ''Puxuvilare'' in 724, since the Latin suffix -villare was not associated with vegetation.

Toponymy

See also