douce

See also: ďouče

English

Etymology

From Middle English douce, from Old French dolz, dous, Middle French doux, douce, from Latin dulcis (“sweet”).[1] Doublet of dolce, doux, and dulce.

Pronunciation

  • (UK) IPA(key): /duːs/
  • Audio (Southern England):(file)
  • Rhymes: -uːs
  • Homophone: deuce (one pronunciation)

Adjective

douce (comparative doucer, superlative doucest)

  1. Sweet; nice; pleasant.
  2. (dialect) Serious and quiet; steady, not flighty or casual; sober.
    • 1919, Christopher Morley, “The Battle of Ludlow Street”, in The Haunted Bookshop, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, →OCLC, page 242:
      The bookseller, douce man, had seen too many eccentric customers to be shocked by the vehemence of his questioner.
    • 1932, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Sunset Song (A Scots Quair), Polygon, published 2006, page 27:
      what would you say of a man with plenty of silver that bided all by his lone and made his own bed and did his own baking when he might have had a wife to make him douce and brave?
    • 1992, Hilary Mantel, A Place of Greater Safety, Harper Perennial, published 2007, page 145:
      If Fabre, for example, were elected to the Academy tomorrow, you would see his lust for social revolution turning overnight into the most douce and debonair conformity.
    • 1996, Alasdair Gray, “The Story of a Recluse”, in Every Short Story 1951-2012, Canongate, published 2012, page 271:
      So what strong lord of misrule can preside in this douce, commercially respectable, late 19th century city where even religious fanaticism reinforces un adventurous mediocrity?

Derived terms

References

  1. ^ “douce, adj.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.

French

Pronunciation

Adjective

douce

  1. feminine singular of doux

Anagrams

Middle English

Alternative forms

Etymology

Borrowed from Old French dous, dolz, douce, from Latin dulcem.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /duːs/

Adjective

douce

  1. pleasant, sweet, nice, kind
  2. sweet to the taste

Derived terms

Descendants

  • English: douce
  • Scots: douce

References

Noun

douce

  1. (rare) lover

References

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