corpulence

English

Alternative forms

• corpulency

Etymology

From Old French corpulence, from Latin corpulentia.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈkɔː(ɹ)pjʊləns/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Noun

corpulence (countable and uncountable, plural corpulences)

1. The characteristic or state of being corpulent.

   Synonyms: (obsolete) corpulentness, fatness, obesity, pudginess

   Antonyms: slimness, thinness

   • 1860, Richard F[rancis] Burton, “We Return to Unyanyembe”, in The Lake Regions of Central Africa: A Picture of Exploration […], volume II, London: Longman, Green, Longman and Roberts, →OCLC, page 182:

     Corpulence is a beauty: girls are fattened to a vast bulk by drenches of curds and cream thickened with flour, and are duly disciplined when they refuse.

Derived terms

• corpulence index

Translations

characteristic or state of being corpulent

• Bulgarian: дебелина (bg) f (debelina)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 肥滿 / 肥满 (zh) (féimǎn), 肥胖 (zh) (féipàng)

• French: corpulence (fr) f
• German: Korpulenz (de) f
• Hungarian: testesség (hu), kövérség (hu), korpulencia
• Italian: corpulenza (it) f
• Japanese: 肥満 (ja) (ひまん, himan)
• Korean: 비만(肥滿) (ko) (biman)
• Latin: corpulentia f, adeps m or f
• Russian: доро́дность (ru) f (doródnostʹ), корпуле́нция (ru) f (korpuléncija), ту́чность (ru) f (túčnostʹ)
• Spanish: obesidad (es) f
• Turkish:

  Ottoman Turkish: سمیزلك (semizlik), شیشمانلق (şişmanlık)

French

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Latin corpulentia.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kɔʁ.py.lɑ̃s/

• Audio (France (Vosges)):

  (file)

Noun

corpulence f (plural corpulences)

1. corpulence (quality of being corpulent)
   • 1857, Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary […]‎^[1], Paris: Michel Lévy Frères:

     Mais, le ressort du coté droit s'étant à la longue affaissé sous le poids de sa corpulence, il se faisait que la voiture penchait un peu tout en allant, et l'on apercevait sur l'autre coussin près de lui une vaste boîte, recouverte de basane rouge, dont les trois fermoirs de cuivre brillaient magistralement.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

Related terms

• corpulent

Further reading

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