enquête

See also: enquete, Enquete, and enquêté

Dutch

Etymology

Borrowed from French enquête.

Pronunciation

• Audio:

  (file)

Noun

enquête c (plural enquêtes, diminutive enquêtetje n)

1. survey (set of questions about opinions)
2. investigation (e.g. a congressional investigation)

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French

Etymology

From (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Vulgar Latin *inquaesita < inquaerere < (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Latin quaerere. Compare also the Medieval Latin inquesta.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɑ̃.kɛt/
• IPA^(key): [yn ˈɒ̃kɛt]
• IPA^(key): [ˈɑ̃kʲæɪ̯t]

• Audio (CAN):

  (file)

Noun

enquête f (plural enquêtes)

1. inquest, investigation, examination
   • 1890, Guy de Maupassant, La vie errante

     Plusieurs mois se passèrent, puis cet homme, ayant été appelé à la questure, laissa glisser cette lettre à terre. Un gendarme la saisit et la présenta au juge qui tomba en arrêt sur les mots : intentions meurtrières, pris une autre route, réfugiés, capturés, Lombardo. Le paysan fut emprisonné, interrogé, mis au secret. Il n’avoua rien. On le garda et une enquête sévère fut ouverte.

     Several months passed. Then this man, having been appointed to a collectorship, threw away the letter. A policeman picked it up and presented it to a judge, who immediately fell upon these words: "Murderous intentions, taken another route, found refuge, captured, Lombardo. The peasant was imprisoned, questioned, almost tortured. He knew nothing. They kept him imprisoned, and a severe examination was begun.

2. survey, inquiry
   • 1923, Marcel Proust, La prisonnière

     C’est justement parce que cette douceur a été nécessaire pour enfanter la douleur — et reviendra du reste la calmer par intermittences — que les hommes peuvent être sincères avec autrui, et même avec eux-mêmes, quand ils se glorifient de la bonté d’une femme envers eux, quoique, à tout prendre, au sein de leur liaison circule constamment, d’une façon secrète, inavouée aux autres, ou révélée involontairement par des questions, des enquêtes, une inquiétude douloureuse.

     It is precisely because this comfort has been necessary to bring grief to birth—and will return moreover at intervals to calm it—that men can be sincere with each other, and even with themselves, when they pride themselves upon a woman’s kindness to them, although, taking things all in all, at the heart of their intimacy there lurks continually in a secret fashion, unavowed to the rest of the world, or revealed unintentionally by questions, inquiries, a painful uncertainty.

Related terms

• enquêter

Descendants

• → Belarusian: анке́та (ankjéta)
• → Czech: anketa
• → Dutch: enquête
  • → Indonesian: angket
• → Esperanto: enketo
• → German: Enquete
• → Japanese: アンケート
• → Korean: 앙케트 (angketeu)
• → Macedonian: анкета (anketa)
• → Polish: ankieta
• → Russian: анкета (anketa)
  • → Yiddish: אַנקעטע (ankete)
• Serbo-Croatian:
  • Cyrillic script: анкета
  • Latin script: anketa
• → Swedish: enkät
• → Turkish: anket

Verb

enquête

1. first-person singular present indicative of enquêter
2. third-person singular present indicative of enquêter
3. first-person singular present subjunctive of enquêter
4. third-person singular present subjunctive of enquêter
5. second-person singular imperative of enquêter

Further reading

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