bijou

See also: Bijou

English

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /biˈʒuː/

Etymology 1

Borrowed from French bijou.

Noun

bijou (plural bijous)

1. jewel
2. a piece of jewelry, a trinket
3. a small intricately made metalworking

Etymology 2

Borrowing from Sabir bijou, ultimately from Occitan pichon (“small, little”), influenced by English bijou (“jewel”).

Adjective

bijou (comparative more bijou, superlative most bijou)

1. (Polari) small, little (often implying affection)
   • 1968 Kenneth Horne, "Bona Prods" in: Round the Horne

     You may have vada'd one of our tiny bijou masterpiecettes, heartface.

   • 1997, Ian Lucas, "The Color of His Eyes: Polari and the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence" in: Anna Livia, Kira Hall (editors), Queerly Phrased: Language, Gender, and Sexuality, page 91

     We, the Sister of Perpetual Indulgence and the Gathered Faithful, do hereby invoke the spirit of our beloved Muffin the Mule, to recognize the bona work of Mr. Derek Jarman in promulgating Universal Joy [...] in his bijou masterpiecettes[.]

   • 2012, Paul, "Bijou Polari Appette pre-varda’d" in: Gay History (05/08/2012)

     Polari, used for decades by gay men, actors, and theatre performers and which famously appeared on primetime radio show Round The Horne, has been brought up-to-date with a bijou iPhone appette.

2. (of a residence) small and elegant
3. intricate; finely made

Quotations

• 1989, H. T. Willetts (translator), Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (author), August 1914, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, ISBN 0-374-51999-4, page 126:

  In small towns like Soldau a small area accommodates the town hall, the church, several miniature squares, a monument to somebody or other, perhaps more than one, all sorts of shops, beerhouses, a post office, a bank, and there may be a bijou park behind wrought-iron railings, then the streets and the town end just as abruptly, and you have scarcely passed the last house when you find a highroad lined with trees stretching before you with a neat grid of precisely demarcated fields on either side.

Usage notes

Often used with -ette on the noun that it describes, as in the quotations given above, and bijou problemette.

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Dutch

Alternative forms

• byou (hyperforeignism)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /biˈʒu/

• Audio

  (file)

Etymology

Borrowed from French bijou.

Noun

bijou m (plural bijoux or bijous, diminutive bijoutje n)

1. a piece of jewelry, often specifically with fake gems

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French

Etymology

Borrowing from Breton bizoù (“ring”), from biz (“finger”).

Pronunciation

• audio

  (file)

• IPA^(key): /bi.ʒu/

Noun

bijou m (plural bijoux)

1. a piece of jewelry

Usage notes

Only seven words in French ending in -ou have their plurals in -oux instead of -ous: bijou, caillou, chou, genou, hibou, joujou, pou.

See also

• bijouterie
• bijoutier

Further reading

• “bijou” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).