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Webster’s Dictionary (1828)



362 words match “FRENCH”

ANGELOT n.
A French gold coin of the reign of Louis XI., bearing the image of St. Michael; also, a piece coined at Paris by the English under Henry VI. [Obs.]
ANISETTE n.
A French cordial or liqueur flavored with anise seeds. De Colange.
ANTI-GALLICAN a.
Opposed to what is Gallic or French.
ARCHITECT n.
A contriver, designer, or maker. The architects of their own happiness. Milton. A French woman is a perfect architect in dress. Coldsmith.
ARCUBUS n.
The termination of many English words; as, coward, reynard, drunkard, mostly from the French, in which language this ending is of German origin, being orig. the same word as English hard. It usually has the sense of one who has to a high or excessive degree the quality expressed by the root; as, braggart, sluggard.…
ARPENTATOR n.
The Anglicized form of the French arpenteur, a land surveyor. [R.]
ARRIERE-BAN n.
A proclamation, as of the French kings, calling not only their immediate feudatories, but the vassals of these feudatories, to take the field for war; also, the body of vassals called or liable to be called to arms, as in ancient France.
ASSIGN n.
A thing pertaining or belonging to something else; an appurtenance. [Obs.] Six French rapiers and poniards, with their assigns, as girdles, hangers, and so. Shak.
ASSIZE n.
pted into size.] An hundred cubits high by just assize. Spenser. [Formerly written, as in French, assise.]
ATIMY n.
s have verbs in -ate; as, alliterate -ation, narrate -ation; many are derived through the French; as, alteration, visitation; and many are formed on verbs ending in the Greek formative -ize (Fr. -ise); as, civilization, demoralization.
AUGUSTAN a.
an literature. Thus the reign of Louis XIV. (b. 1638) has been called the Augustan age of French literature, and that of Queen Anne (b. 1664) the Augustan age of English literature. -- Augustan confession (Eccl. Hist.), or confession of Augsburg, drawn up at Augusta Vindelicorum, or Augsburg, by Luther and Melanchthon…
AUNE n.
A French cloth measure, of different parts of the country (at Paris, 0.95 of an English ell); -- now superseded by the meter.
AUTOCLAVE n.
A kind of French stewpan with a steamtight lid. Knight.
AUXILIARY n.
y verb; as, have, be, may, can, do, must, shall, and will, in English; être and avoir, in French; avere and essere, in Italian; estar and haber, in Spanish.
AVIGNON BERRY n.
of Avignon, in France. It is used by dyers and painters for coloring yellow. Called also French berry.
BACCARA; BACCARAT n.
A French game of cards, played by a banker and punters.
BAD LANDS n.
es the difficulty of traversing the country, whence the name, first given by the Canadian French, Mauvaises Terres (bad lands).
BAGGAGE n.
A woman of loose morals; a prostitute. A disreputable, daring, laughing, painted French baggage. Thackeray.
BALLADE n.
A form of French versification, sometimes imitated in English, in which three or four rhymes recur through three stanzas of eight or ten lines each, the stanzas concluding with a refrain, and the whole poem with an envoy.
BAN n.
A calling together of the king's (esp. the French king's) vassals for military service; also, the body of vassals thus assembled or summoned. In present usage, in France and Prussia, the most effective part of the population liable to military duty and not in the standing army.
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