poignant
English
Etymology
From Middle English poynaunt, poynant, borrowed from Anglo-Norman puignant, poynaunt etc., present participle of poindre (“to prick”), from Latin pungō (“prick”).
Pronunciation
- (General American, Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈpɔɪn.jənt/
- (obsolete) IPA(key): /ˈpɔɪ.nənt/
Audio (US) (file) Audio (AU) (file) - Hyphenation: poign‧ant (per American Heritage and Random House); poi‧gnant (per Merriam-Webster)
Adjective
poignant (comparative more poignant, superlative most poignant)
- (obsolete, of a weapon etc) Sharp-pointed; keen.
- 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, VII:
- His siluer shield, now idle maisterlesse; / His poynant speare, that many made to bleed […].
- 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, VII:
- Incisive; penetrating.
- His comments were poignant and witty.
- Neat; eloquent; applicable; relevant.
- A poignant reply will garner more credence than hours of blown smoke.
- Evoking strong mental sensation, to the point of distress; emotionally moving.
- 2004, Andrew Radford, Minimalist Syntax: Exploring the Structure of English, University Press, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, §1.4, page 13:
- A particularly poignant example of this is a child called Genie (see Curtiss 1977; Rymer 1993), who was deprived of speech input and kept locked up on her own in a room until age thirteen. When eventually taken into care and exposed to intensive language input, her vocabulary grew enormously, but her syntax never developed.
- Flipping through his high school yearbook evoked many a poignant memory of yesteryear.
- (figuratively, of a taste or smell) Piquant, pungent.
- (figuratively, of a look, or of words) Piercing.
- (dated, mostly British) Inducing sharp physical pain.
Synonyms
- (evoking strong mental sensation): distressing, moving
Related terms
Translations
sharp-pointed; keen
|
incisive; penetrating
|
neat; eloquent; applicable; relevant
|
evoking strong mental sensation
|
piquant; pungent
|
piercing
|
inducing sharp physical pain
References
- OED 2nd edition 1989
- Webster Third New International 1986
Anagrams
French
Etymology
From Old French poignant, present participle of poindre. Possibly corresponds to Latin pungēns, pungentem[1].
Pronunciation
Verb
poignant
Adjective
poignant (feminine poignante, masculine plural poignants, feminine plural poignantes)
References
Further reading
- “poignant”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
Old French
Etymology
Present participle of poindre. Possibly corresponds to Latin pungēns, pungentem.
Verb
poignant
Adjective
poignant m (oblique and nominative feminine singular poignant or poignante)
Descendants
Categories:
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms derived from Anglo-Norman
- English terms derived from Latin
- English 2-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio links
- English lemmas
- English adjectives
- English terms with obsolete senses
- English terms with quotations
- English dated terms
- French terms inherited from Old French
- French terms derived from Old French
- French terms inherited from Latin
- French terms derived from Latin
- French 2-syllable words
- French terms with IPA pronunciation
- French non-lemma forms
- French present participles
- French lemmas
- French adjectives
- Old French terms inherited from Latin
- Old French terms derived from Latin
- Old French non-lemma forms
- Old French present participles
- Old French lemmas
- Old French adjectives