ménage

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See also: menage, Menage, and ménagé

English

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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Borrowed from French ménage; compare Middle English menage, a parallel borrowing from an earlier form of the French word.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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ménage (plural ménages)

  1. A household; a domestic situation. [from 17th c.]
    • 1838 (date written), L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XIII, in Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping up Appearances. [], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, [], published 1842, →OCLC, page 167:
      "Oh," cried her ladyship, "I see the whole ménage; they will take a first floor over a baker's shop, to save fire, and live upon red herrings during the week, with a mutton chop by way of meat on a Sunday."
    • 1939, Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep, Penguin, published 2011, page 39:
      It smelled of ether and something else, possibly laudanum. I had never tried the mixture but it seemed to go pretty well with the Geiger ménage.
  2. (now Scotland) A type of cooperative society whereby all members pay a regular sum of savings, or through which goods can be paid for in installments. [from 19th c.]
    Hypernym: ROSCA
  3. A group of people in a sexual relationship; especially, such a group that live together; the relationship itself. [from 20th c.]
    Hyponyms: ménage à trois, ménage à quatre, ménage à moi

Anagrams

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French

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Etymology

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Inherited from Middle French mesnage, from Old French manage, mainage, from manoir, maneir, maindre, from Latin manēre. The Old French forms maisnage, mesnage were influenced by the word maisnée, maisnede, from Vulgar Latin *mā(n)siōnāta (French maisonnée), from Latin mānsiō (which also became French maison).

Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key): /me.naʒ/
  • Audio:(file)
  • Rhymes: -aʒ

Noun

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ménage m (plural ménages)

  1. housework, housekeeping
  2. household
    les ménages les moins aisés
    the least well-off households

Derived terms

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Descendants

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  • Danish: menage
  • English: ménage
  • German: Menage
  • Portuguese: ménage

Further reading

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Anagrams

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Portuguese

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Etymology

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Unadapted borrowing from French ménage.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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ménage m or f (plural ménages)

  1. domestic life
  2. household (everyone who lives in a given house)
  3. Clipping of ménage à trois.