écrevisse

French

Etymology

Inherited from Old French crevice, from Frankish *krebitja (“crayfish”), diminutive of Frankish *krebit (“crab”), from Proto-Germanic *krabitaz (“crab, cancer”), from Proto-Indo-European *grebʰ-, *gerebʰ- (“to scratch, crawl”). Non-etymological initial /e/ appears to be the result of rebracketing in the Old French plural les crevisses.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /e.kʁə.vis/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Audio (France (Saint-Maurice-de-Beynost)):

  (file)

• Audio (France (Vosges)):

  (file)

• Audio (France):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -is

Noun

écrevisse f (plural écrevisses)

1. crayfish, crawfish

   Synonym: (dated) cancre

   • 1857, Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary […]‎^[1], Paris: Michel Lévy Frères:

     Binet se trouvait là, c'est-à-dire un peu plus bas, contre le mur de la terrasse, à pêcher des écrevisses.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

Derived terms

• écrevisse signal

References

• “écrevisse”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012
• Sampson, Rodney. 2010. Vowel prosthesis in Romance: A diachronic study. Oxford University Press. Page 25.

Anagrams

• éviscères