embonpoint
English
Etymology
Borrowed from French embonpoint.
Pronunciation
Noun
embonpoint (countable and uncountable, plural embonpoints)
- Plumpness, stoutness, especially when voluptuous.
- 1911, J.M. Barrie, Peter and Wendy:
- She was slightly inclined to embonpoint.
- 1922, James Joyce, Ulysses:
- The beautiful woman threw off her sabletrimmed wrap, displaying her queenly shoulders and heaving embonpoint.
- 2002, Colin Jones, The Great Nation, Penguin 2003, p. 1:
- The patient's physicians had always allowed him to indulge a gargantuan appetite, countering his intake and regulating his embonpoint by a heroic diet of purges and enemas.
- 1911, J.M. Barrie, Peter and Wendy:
Translations
plumpness
|
Adjective
embonpoint (comparative more embonpoint, superlative most embonpoint)
- Plump, chubby, buxom.
- Synonyms: see Thesaurus:overweight, Thesaurus:voluptuous
Translations
plump, chubby, buxom
French
Etymology
Univerbation of en bon point.
The rule in French is to write /n/ as /m/ in front of /m, p/ or /b/ - here the rule is applied to the first /n/ but not the second since the rule does not apply to the words derived from bon : bonbon, bonbonne and bonbonnière.
Pronunciation
Noun
embonpoint m (plural embonpoints)
- plumpness, stoutness
- 1844, Honoré de Balzac, Modeste Mignon:
- Quoique La Brière fût alors mince, il appartient à ce genre de tempéraments qui, formés tard, prennent à trente ans un embonpoint inattendu.
- (please add an English translation of this quotation)
- 1924, Emmanuel Bove, Mes Amis[1]:
- La patronne s’appelle Lucie Dunois. Son nom, en majuscules d’émail, est cimenté au vitrage de la devanture. Il manque trois lettres. Lucie a l’embonpoint d’un buveur de bière.
- (please add an English translation of this quotation)
Further reading
- “embonpoint”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
Categories:
- English terms borrowed from French
- English terms derived from French
- English 3-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English uncountable nouns
- English countable nouns
- English adjectives
- French univerbations
- French 3-syllable words
- French terms with IPA pronunciation
- French lemmas
- French nouns
- French countable nouns
- French masculine nouns
- French terms with quotations