discaire

English

WOTD – 7 November 2021

Etymology

DJ Kayalik, a French discaire (disc jockey) and composer.

From English disc (“vinyl gramophone or phonograph record”) + French -aire (suffix forming adjectives or nouns), modelled after disquaire. Disc is derived from French disque (“disk, record”), from Latin discus (“discus, quoit; dish shaped like a discus; disc of a sundial”), from Ancient Greek δίσκος (dískos, “disc, quoit; dish; round mirror; reliquary”), probably of Pre-Greek origin.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /dɪsˈkɛə/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /dɪsˈkɛɚ/

• Audio (GA)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛə(ɹ)
• Hyphenation: disc‧aire

Noun

discaire (plural discaires)

1. (dance, music) Alternative spelling of disquaire (“disc jockey”)
   • 1978, Andrew Holleran, chapter 1, in Dancer from the Dance: […] (A Plume Book), New York, N.Y.: New American Library, published October 1986, →ISBN, page 25:

     [I]n the winter he used to go out dancing at five in the morning, and why? Because then the crowd had gone, the discaire was no longer playing for them, but for his friends, and that was the best dancing.

   • 1978 December, Andrew Holleran, “Dark Disco: A Lament”, in Christopher Street, volume 3, number 5, New York, N.Y.: That New Magazine, →ISSN, →OCLC; republished in Michael Denneny, Charles Ortleb, and Thomas Steele, editors, The Christopher Street Reader, New York, N.Y.: Perigee Books, 1983 (1984 printing), →ISBN, page 74:

     There was no one word to describe the variegated music we spent the night with. It was distinct enough for the discaire to begin a set quietly, build gradually to a climax, then let you down to start all over again. Do you remember that vanished custom?

   • 2005, Peter Shapiro, Turn the Beat Around: The Secret History of Disco‎^[1], New York, N.Y.: Faber and Faber, →ISBN:

     While the selection of tracks was a pretty accurate reflection of what was being played in discotheques at the time— [...] the "mixing" was pretty appalling (the songs just scrunched together as if they were on a crowded bus and there was no DJ credited on the album, not that any self-respecting discaire would have wanted to be associated with it) despite the claim that the album was "tight and distinctive … professional and polished … never contrived or stylized."

   • 2006, Bill Brewster, Frank Broughton, “Balearic Bryllyant”, in Last Night a DJ Saved My Life: The History of the Disc Jockey‎^[2], updated edition, New York, N.Y.: Headline Book Publishing, →ISBN:

     The DJ booth was built in a glass elevator so the discaires could play for four different dancefloors at once, gliding from one to another as they selected their tunes.

   • 2007, “Why Disco Happened”, in Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Plunges into Music (Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader), e-book edition, Ashland, Or.: Portable Press/The Bathroom Readers’ Institute, Printers Row Publishing Group, published November 2011, →ISBN:

     The most famous club, Le Discotheque (French for "The Record Library"), opened on rue de la Huchette [in Paris] in 1941. With a discaire, or disc jockey, spinning jazz records all night long, the main attraction was dancing. Thumbing their noses at the occupying Reich, Le Discotheque and other underground clubs opened their doors to blacks and homosexuals, the same groups that would first embrace disco music 30 years later.

   • 2014, Edmund White, “New York City”, in States of Desire Revisited: Travels in Gay America, Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin Press, →ISBN, page 275:

     A third, a discaire, also died; "That's absolutely the last disco funeral I'll ever attend," my friend reported. "You do know, don't you, that they played all his greatest tapes at the funeral."

Usage notes

• While disquaire is often used to refer to a disc jockey in a French-speaking country, discaire does not appear to be restricted in this manner.

Translations

disc jockey — see disc jockey

Further reading

• disc jockey on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• N[athan] H. Mager, S[ylvia] K. Mager, compilers and editors (1982) “discaire”, in The Morrow Book of New Words: 8500 Terms Not Yet in Standard Dictionaries, New York, N.Y.: Quill, William Morrow and Company, →ISBN, page 79, column 2: “discaire one who selects records to be played at a discotheque.”