douce

English

Etymology

From Middle English douce, from Old French dolz, dous, Middle French doux, douce, from Latin dulcis (“sweet”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /duːs/

Adjective

douce (comparative more douce, superlative most douce)

1. (obsolete) Sweet; nice; pleasant.
2. (dialect) Serious and quiet; steady, not flighty or casual; sober.
   • 1932, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Sunset Song, Polygon 2006 (A Scots Quair), p. 27:

     what would you say of a man with plenty of silver that bided all by his lone and made his own bed and did his own baking when he might have had a wife to make him douce and brave?

   • 1992, Hilary Mantel, A Place of Greater Safety, Harper Perennial 2007, p. 145:

     If Fabre, for example, were elected to the Academy tomorrow, you would see his lust for social revolution turning overnight into the most douce and debonair conformity.

   • 1996, Alasdair Gray, ‘The Story of a Recluse’, Canongate 2012 (Every Short Story 1951-2012), p. 271:

     So what strong lord of misrule can preside in this douce, commercially respectable, late 19th century city where even religious fanaticism reinforces un adventurous mediocrity?

Derived terms

• doucely
• douceness

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French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /dus/

• Audio (Paris)

  (file)

• Audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -us

Adjective

douce

1. feminine singular of doux

Anagrams

• coude, coudé

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Middle English

Alternative forms

• dowse, douse, dowce

Etymology

From Old French dolz, douz, douce, from Latin dulcis.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /duːs/

Adjective

douce

1. Pleasant, sweet, nice, kind.
2. Sweet to the taste.

Derived terms

• doucen
• douceoure
• doucet
• egurdouce

Descendants

• English: douce
• Scots: douce

References

• “dǒuce (adj. & n.)”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-07-11.

Noun

douce

1. (rare) A lover.

References

• “dǒuce (adj. & n.)”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-07-11.