double entendre
/dʌbəl ɑnˈtɑndrə/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.34 in modern English
18
Scrabble Score
14
Letters
4
Syllables
9
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "Avoid all equivocal expressions, usually denominated double entendre; they are certain proofs of a mean and indelicate mind."
- "It is a momentous crusade without the cross; and an insidious one, for the calumnies and double entendre against the church are well wrapped up and keenly distributed."
- "Churn and stick, and the agitation needed to make the butter, would obviously suggest sexual intercourse, and so the work song becomes an occasion for a series of double entendres in which the dairy maids could tease the men working in the vicinity and thus enact the courtship of Inanna and Dumuzi to make their work sacred."
- "It is not only the teacher's play with single words, phrases, and double entendre that are common in my classroom data."
- "(There are no double entendres in France, where the phrase does not exist or make sense.)"
Etymology
According to Merriam-Webster and OED, from rare and obsolete French double entendre, which literally meant "double meaning" and was used in the senses of "double understanding" or "ambiguity", but acquired its current suggestive twist after being first used in English in 1673 by John Dryden. From French double (“double”) + entendre (“to understand, to mean”). The phrase has not been used in French for centuries and would be ungrammatical in modern French, therefore making it a pseudo-Gallicism. The closest modern equivalents are double sens, which often has (but not always) the suggestiveness of the English expression, and sous-entendu which implies a subtext.
Origin
- Source language: French
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /dʌbəl ɑnˈtɑndrə/
- British English: /dubl ɑ̃tɑ̃ːdɹə/