louche
Appearance
See also: louché
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Pronunciation
[edit]- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /luːʃ/
- (General American) IPA(key): /luʃ/
Audio (Received Pronunciation): (file) - Rhymes: -uːʃ
Adjective
[edit]louche (comparative loucher, superlative louchest)
- Of questionable taste or morality; decadent.
- 2012 February 25, “The other half lives: The transatlantic appeal of the British ruling classes”, in The Economist[1], archived from the original on 28 April 2016:
- Upstairs Downstairs hosts the Kennedys and Wallis Simpson (these days, in British culture, the archetypal louche American).
- 2016 May 23, Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, “Apocalypse pits the strengths of the X-Men series against the weaknesses”, in The A.V. Club[2], archived from the original on 24 May 2016:
- Ever since X-Men: First Class set the series' clock back a few decades and installed Michael Fassbender's moody Magneto and James McAvoy's louche Charles Xavier as replacements for Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart's chess-playing pappies, the big-screen X-Men's central conflict—Xavier's Booker T. Washington-esque School For Gifted Youngsters vs. a rogue's gallery of evil mutants, crew cuts, and politicos—has gotten a lot murkier.
- Not reputable or decent.
- 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 70, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, →OCLC:
- My uncle knows something about that fellow—Clavering knows something about him. There’s something louche regarding him.
- 1888, Henry James, “The Aspern Papers”, in The Atlantic Monthly, volume LXI, Boston, Mass.: Atlantic Monthly Co., →OCLC, page 304:
- The aunt will refuse; she will think the whole proceeding very louche!
- Unconventional and slightly disreputable in an attractive manner; raffish, rakish.
- 2007 September 9, Guy Trebay, “Who will pull together the collections?”, in The New York Times[3], archived from the original on 3 November 2015:
- Anyone inside the business can also tell you that without Carine Roitfeld's louche sexy styling Tom Ford's Gucci might easily have come off looking like a high-end Club Monaco.
Noun
[edit]louche
- A dubious or disreputable person or thing
- 2003, Barbara Cleverly, Ragtime in Simla, Robinson, →ISBN:
- 'That's right,' Joe smiled. 'Loafing about on the Mall with the louche of the town. And, speaking of the louche of the town, don't we have an appointment to interview one or two of them this morning?'
- 2007, Tom Treece, But What Do I Know?, Xulon Press, →ISBN:
- I'm outraged this louche has since fathered two children with another woman and that after all this questionable, nefarious behavior, Greer continues to see no conflict of interest in him being Terd's guardian.
- 2012, Bill Cain, Dove of War, AuthorHouse, →ISBN:
- "Rooster, you say? He seems to always appear at unusual times and locations. He strikes me as something of a legerdemain. Let's hope he is no louche when it comes to his role in all of this.
Verb
[edit]louche (third-person singular simple present louches, present participle louching, simple past and past participle louched)
- (transitive) To make (an alcoholic beverage, e.g. absinthe or ouzo) cloudy by mixing it with water, due to the presence of anethole. This is known as the ouzo effect.
- Certain anise-flavored drinks have developed a mystique based on the exotic appearance of louching.
- 2010, Paul Owens, Paul Nathan, Dave Herlong, The Little Green Book of Absinthe: An Essential Companion with Lore, Trivia, and Classic and Contemporary Cocktails, New York, N.Y.: Perigee Books, →ISBN:
- In distillation, the first few liters of absinthe to come out of the still are called the head; the last few liters are the tail. The head and tail don't have enough alcohol to keep the oils in suspension, so the absinthe comes out of the still louched.
- 2012, Heather E. Hutsell, chapter 1, in Blood Mettle, [s.l.]: Fatty Baby Cat Publishing, →ISBN, page 2:
- I found a little corner to stand in and pretended to sip my own louched absinthe.
- 2015, Jason Sizemore, For Exposure: The Life and Times of a Small Press Publisher, Lexington, Ky.: Apex Publishers, →ISBN:
- Ah, Mr. Sizemore, the green fairy is best prepared carefully and slowly to appreciate its full potential. Simply fill the fountain with iced water, place your glass of absinthe below the spigot with a single sugar cube placed over a slotted spoon and adjust the tap to your desired flow. The cold water will gradually dissolve the sugar and mix with the absinthe in a process known as louching.
Translations
[edit]to become cloudy when mixed with water
Further reading
[edit]- Ouzo effect on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
Dutch
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Borrowed from French louche, from Latin lusca.
Pronunciation
[edit]Adjective
[edit]louche (comparative loucher, superlative meest louche or louchest)
Declension
[edit]Declension of louche | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
uninflected | louche | |||
inflected | louche | |||
comparative | loucher | |||
positive | comparative | superlative | ||
predicative/adverbial | louche | loucher | het louchest het loucheste | |
indefinite | m./f. sing. | louche | louchere | loucheste |
n. sing. | louche | loucher | loucheste | |
plural | louche | louchere | loucheste | |
definite | louche | louchere | loucheste | |
partitive | louches | louchers | — |
French
[edit]Pronunciation
[edit]Etymology 1
[edit]From Old French lousche, from Latin lusca, feminine of luscus (“one-eyed”) ( > Old French lois). Compare Italian losco and Portuguese lusco.
Adjective
[edit]louche (plural louches)
- (dated) cross-eyed
- (by extension) cloudy; obscure
- (figuratively) shady; dubious; seedy; shifty
Derived terms
[edit]Descendants
[edit]Noun
[edit]louche m (plural louches)
- (in a liquid) cloudiness due to a suspension of fine particles
Etymology 2
[edit]A dialectal (Norman-Picard) form of Old French louce, loce, from Old Frankish *lōtija, from Proto-Germanic *hlōþþijō. Cognate with Dutch loet (“a tool to scrape or shovel”). More at loot.
Noun
[edit]louche f (plural louches)
Etymology 3
[edit]Regular conjugation of -er verb loucher
Verb
[edit]louche
- inflection of loucher:
Further reading
[edit]- “louche”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
Categories:
- English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *lewk-
- English terms borrowed from French
- English terms derived from French
- English 1-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio pronunciation
- Rhymes:English/uːʃ
- Rhymes:English/uːʃ/1 syllable
- English lemmas
- English adjectives
- English terms with quotations
- English nouns
- English countable nouns
- English nouns with unknown or uncertain plurals
- English verbs
- English transitive verbs
- English terms with usage examples
- en:Distilled beverages
- Dutch terms borrowed from French
- Dutch terms derived from French
- Dutch terms derived from Latin
- Dutch terms with IPA pronunciation
- Dutch terms with audio pronunciation
- Dutch lemmas
- Dutch adjectives
- French 1-syllable words
- French terms with IPA pronunciation
- French terms derived from Old French
- French terms derived from Latin
- French lemmas
- French adjectives
- French dated terms
- French nouns
- French countable nouns
- French masculine nouns
- French terms derived from Frankish
- French terms derived from Proto-Germanic
- French feminine nouns
- French non-lemma forms
- French verb forms
- fr:Kitchenware