pudeur, n.
Pronunciation: Brit. /pjuːˈdəː/, U.S. /pjuˈdər/
Etymology: < French pudeur sense of shame or embarrassment (1542 in Middle French with reference to matters of a personal nature, 1580 with reference to matters of a sexual nature) < classical Latin pudor pudor n.
Compare the following earlier use of the French word in an English context:
1870 S. H. Hodgson Theory of Pract. I. ii. 217 The French term pudeur seems exactly to express the feeling which is called out painfully or wounded by any lifting of the veil of the tacenda.
A sense of shame or embarrassment; bashfulness, modesty, or reticence. Cf. pudor n.
1876 New Englander(New Haven, Connecticut) Apr. 221 Our irrepressible old friend Petitio Principii;..so perfectly naked as to have brought ingenuous blushes into the seasoned countenance of the Westminster Review itself; whose pudeur no one ever had occasion to suspect before.
1919 W. Lewis Caliph's Design Author's Pref. 6 Architecture—for which I have substituted Design, from a feeling of comprehensible pudeur, in referring to this unfortunate Entity.
1962 I. Murdoch Unofficial Rose xxi. 201 She had in any case, with a sort of pudeur, arranged to be out of London.
1976 Listener 10 June 737/3 It is hard not to be goaded into guessing identities. Pudeur makes the reader bend over backwards to prevent this happening.
1999 S. Rushdie Ground beneath her Feet (2000) xiv. 435 Their band,..the supposed shock troops of the new wave, fizzled in the face of American pudeur and ended up fatally shooting each other.
Written by NativeEnglish
Native English Spain is dedicated to make learning English simple, fun and affordable for Spanish people.
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment