This week's theme
Words borrowed from French

This week's words
risque
billet-doux
femme fatale
pudeur
dishabille

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(pyoo-DUHR, -DUH)

MEANING:

noun: A sense of shame, especially in sexual matters; modesty.

ETYMOLOGY:

From French pudeur (modesty), from Latin pudere (to make or be ashamed) which also gave us pudibund (prudish) and pudency (modesty). Earliest documented use: 1876.

USAGE:

"Alexandra Styron first started reading her father's novel Sophie's Choice as soon as it came out, in 1979, when she was a preteenager. A few chapters in, encountering a steamy sex scene, she rushed from the room, overcome with adolescent pudeur."
Liesl Schillinger; Literary Lions, by Their Cubs; The New York Times; Aug 10, 2011.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: