parlez-vous

See also: parlez vous

English

Noun

parlez-vous (plural parlez-vouses)

1. Alternative form of parleyvoo
   • 1872 August 2, “A Prussian in America”, in Public Ledger, volume XIV, number 133, Memphis, Tenn., column 2:

     At first we greeted them from sheer pity; but the parlez-vouses passed us like so many surly oxen.

   • 1877 September 27, “Intercepted Letters. Crossing the Channel.”, in Truth: A Weekly Journal, volume II, number 39, London: […] , page 387, column 2:

     The Parlez-vouses charged us a franc a trunk for the privilege of ransacking, and then we took the steamer to Honfleur, where a carriage met us, and brought us to this pretty spot, about which I’ll tell you anon.

   • 1902 July 6, “The Biography of a Shingle: Life in New Brunswick’s Lumber Forests. Woods in Midwinter: […]”, in Democrat and Chronicle, Rochester, N.Y., page 23, column 4:

     Red and green sweaters, leather jackets, trousers that have long since lost all originality but that of the owner, so hitched and sagged and rolled up are they, gray yarn socks, and yellow moccasins—these bind about and encumber what seems to be the jolliest crowd of “Parlez-vouses” on earth.

   • 1913, Emilie Benson Knipe, Alden Arthur Knipe, Beatrice of Denewood: A Sequel to “The Lucky Sixpence”, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., page 209:

     “Parlez-vouses or our own men?” demanded the Squire in a business-like tone.

   • 1950 May 26, “Asa S. Bushnell III; […]”, in Princeton Alumni Weekly, volume L, number 30, page 33, column 2:

     Carol Foord of N.Y.C. is the lucky fiancée of Ham Hazlehurst, pursuing his parlez-vouses at the Sorbonne.

Verb

parlez-vous (third-person singular simple present parlez-vouses, present participle parlez-vousing, simple past and past participle parlez-voused)

1. Alternative form of parleyvoo
   • 1837, J[ames] Fenimore Cooper, “France”, in Gleanings in Europe, volume II, Philadelphia, Penn.: Carey, Lea & Blanchard, letter I (To James E. De Kay, Esquire), pages 17 and 22:

     All this time he was speaking French, while my answers and remarks were in English. Suddenly recollecting himself, he said—“Well, here have I been parlez-vousing to you, in a way to surprise you, no doubt; but these Frenchmen have got my tongue so set to their lingo, that I have half forgotten my own language.” […] “Here,” said he, “you are a friend of the lady, and parlez-vous so much better than I, can you tell me whether this is for jeudi, or lundi, or mardi, or whether it means no day at all.”

   • 1878, H. A. Page [pseudonym; Alexander Hay Japp], Thoreau: His Life and Aims: A Study, London: Chatto and Windus, […], part I, page 101:

     While my companions smoked a pipe and parlez-voused with one party, I parlezed and gesticulated with another.

   • 1985, Car and Driver, page 135, column 1:

     In 1980, Volvo engineers sweated in Arizona, testing their prototype 760 sedans. To keep Scottsdale’s upwardly mobile from figuring out what the cars were (fat chance), the Swedes broke the “t”s off of Talbot badges, screwed on the resulting “ALBO” labels, and told people that the cars were French. The ruse might have worked, except that the six-foot-four, blue-eyed blond overseers parlez-voused English in “Ya-shoor!” Scandinavian tones.