promenade

[16] Promenade was borrowed from French. It was a derivative of se promener 397 property ‘go for a walk’, which came from late Latin prōmināre ‘drive forward’. This was a compound verb formed from the prefix prō- ‘forward’ and mināre ‘drive’. It was originally used in English for a ‘leisurely walk’; ‘place for walking’ followed in the mid-17th century, but it does not seem to have been applied specifically to a ‘walk-way by the sea’ until the end of the 18th century. The abbreviation prom dates from the early 20th century. The term promenade concert originated in the 1830s.