trenchant
English
Alternative forms
- trenchaunt (obsolete)
Etymology
From (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Old French, from the present participle of trenchier (“to cut”).
Pronunciation
Adjective
trenchant (comparative more trenchant, superlative most trenchant)
- (obsolete) Fitted to trench or cut; gutting; sharp.
- 1663, Samuel Butler, Hudibras, part 1, canto 1:
- The trenchant blade, Toledo trusty, / For want of fighting was grown rusty, / And ate into itself, for lack / Of somebody to hew and hack.
- 1663, Samuel Butler, Hudibras, part 1, canto 1:
- (figuratively) Keen; biting; vigorously articulate and effective; severe.
- trenchant wit
- 1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, part I, pages 210–211:
- His eyes, of the usual blue, were perhaps remarkably cold, and he certainly could make his glance fall on one as trenchant and heavy as an axe.
- 2011, Jay A. Gertzman, Bookleggers and Smuthounds: The Trade in Erotica, 1920-1940
- His trenchant criticisms of the Church's repression […] include a discussion of the considerable 1938 success of the fledgling NODL in getting magazines removed from various points of sale.
Translations
sharp
biting, severe
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Middle French
Etymology
Noun
trenchant m or f (plural trenchans)
Descendants
- French: tranchant
Old French
Adjective
trenchant m (oblique and nominative feminine singular trenchant or trenchante)
Declension
Declension of trenchant
Verb
trenchant
Categories:
- English terms derived from Old French
- English 2-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio pronunciation
- English lemmas
- English adjectives
- English terms with obsolete senses
- English terms with usage examples
- English terms with quotations
- Middle French terms inherited from Old French
- Middle French terms derived from Old French
- Middle French lemmas
- Middle French adjectives
- Old French lemmas
- Old French adjectives
- Old French non-lemma forms
- Old French present participles