quenouille

English

Etymology

Borrowed from French quenouille.

Noun

quenouille (plural quenouilles)

1. The distaff- or cone-like shape of a tree that has been subjected to quenouille training.
   • 1823, Patrick Neill, Journal of a Horticultural Tour Through Some Parts of Flanders, Holland, and the North of France, in the Autumn of 1817, page 386:

     We had now an opportunity of seeing both pyramidal and quenouille trees, properly so called: they differ so slightly, that it is little wonder the terms should generally be considered as convertible.

   • 1843 January, William Kenrick, “Notes on England and France, during two several visits to those countries in the years 1840, 1841 and 1842”, in Magazine of Horticulture, Botany, and All Useful Discoveries, page 16:

     A portion of the pear trees, having been trained in the quenouille or pyramidal form , by bending downwards the young shoots at midsummer, and thus confined for a season, they retain their position forever after unchanged.

   • 2008, Thomas Brehaut, Cordon Training of Fruit Trees, page 14:

     By cutting your leading branches very short for a number of seasons, as in the case of that absurd form now happily abandoned—the "pillar" or "quenouill"—the tree becomes fruitful, it is true, but at the expense of size, form, and beauty.

2. A tree trained to grow in this shape, the shape of a cone.
   • 1841 July, William Kenrick, letter from Newton, in The Magazine of Horticulture, Botany, and All Useful Discoveries and Improvements in Rural Affairs, page 284:

     At the garden of the London Horticultural Society, the trees are set very remarkably close, and generally trained as quenouilles, or in pyramidal forms. These also bore remarkable crops in that year, being furnished with limbs quite to the ...

   • 1846, Charles Mason Hovey (editor, and author of Article I), "Article I", in Magazine of Horticulture, Botany, and All Useful Discoveries and Improvements in Rural Affairs

     The garden is laid out with a central walk through its entire length, and on each side of this are planted dwarf pears, some trained as pyramidal trees, some as quenouilles, and some as espaliers : and with these Mr. Washburn has tried ...

French

Etymology

Inherited from Middle French quenoulle, from Old French quenoille, from Late Latin conucula, dissimilated form of colucula, from Latin colus.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kə.nuj/

• Audio (Paris)

  (file)

Noun

quenouille f (plural quenouilles)

1. distaff
2. cattail

   Synonyms: massette, typha

Descendants

→⇒ English: quenouille training

Further reading

• “quenouille”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.