double entendre
nounEtymology
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. 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.
- derived from double
Definitions
A phrase that has two meanings, especially where one is innocent and literal, the other…
A phrase that has two meanings, especially where one is innocent and literal, the other risqué, bawdy, or ironic; an innuendo.
- 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.
The neighborhood
Vish — recursive loop
No curated loop yet for double entendre. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.
sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA