piquant

English

WOTD – 26 February 2016

Etymology

Borrowed from Middle French piquant (“pricking, stimulating, irritating”), present participle of piquer, possibly from Old French pikier (“to prick, sting, nettle”). Related to pike.

Pronunciation

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• IPA^(key): /ˈpiːkənt/, /ˈpiːˌkɑːnt/, /piːˈkɑːnt/
• Hyphenation: pi‧quant

Adjective

piquant (comparative more piquant, superlative most piquant)

1. (archaic) Causing hurt feelings; scathing, severe. [from 16th c.]
2. Stimulating to the senses; engaging; charming. [from 17th c.]
   • 1792, Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Penguin 2004, p. 86:

     Their husbands […] leave home to seek for more agreeable, may I be allowed to use a significant French word, piquant society […].

3. Favorably stimulating to the palate; pleasantly spicy; tangy. [from 17th c.]
   • 2000, Lynn Bedford Hall, The Best of Cooking in South Africa, 2nd edition, Cape Town: Struik Publishers, →ISBN, page 103:

     Pork Chops with Apple and Port These chops are baked in a piquant sauce containing fruit, honey, cinnamon, lemon and port, all of which reduces to a spicy syrup.

   • 2005, Clifford A. Wright, Some Like it Hot: Spicy Favorites from the World's Hot Zones, Boston, Mass.: Harvard Common Press, →ISBN, page 170:

     Elsewhere in South America, excepting Bahia in Brazil, one does not encounter piquant cuisine, although one may stumble on a piquant dish now and then […]

   • 2009, Sara Engram with Katie Luber and Kimberly Toqe, The Spice Kitchen: Everyday Cooking with Organic Spices, Kansas City, Mo.: Andrews McMeel Publishing, →ISBN, page 9:

     French charcuterie relies on cloves in the quatre épices, or four-spice powder, for seasoning fine sausages and piquant marinades.

Derived terms

• piquancy

Quotations

• For more quotations using this term, see Citations:piquant.

Translations

engaging; charming

• Italian: piccante (it)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Portuguese: chamativo (pt) m, interessante (pt) m or f

favorably stimulating to the palate

• Dutch: pikant (nl)
• Estonian: pikantne
• Finnish: pikantti
• French: piquant (fr)
• German: pikant (de)
• Hungarian: pikáns (hu)
• Ido: pik-anta
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Italian: piccante (it), vespigno
• Japanese: 辛い (ja) (karai)
• Korean: 맵다 (ko) (maepda)
• Romanian: picant (ro) m
• Russian: пикантный (ru) (pikantnyj)
• Spanish: picante (es)

causing hurt feelings

• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}

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French

Etymology

Present participle of piquer.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /pi.kɑ̃/

• audio:

  (file)

Adjective

piquant (feminine piquante, masculine plural piquants, feminine plural piquantes)

1. Spiky, spiny.
2. Of food: piquant, spicy.
3. Cold; ice-cold.
4. Of humor, a joke, etc.: scathing.
5. (usually of a person) attractive.

Verb

piquant

1. present participle of piquer

Further reading

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

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Middle French

Verb

piquant (feminine singular piquante, masculine plural piquans, feminine plural piquantes)

1. present participle of piquer
2. (may be preceded by en, invariable) gerund of piquer

Adjective

piquant m (feminine singular piquante, masculine plural piquans, feminine plural piquantes)

1. Alternative form of picquant