écrou

• IPA^(key): /e.kʁu/

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Masculinized form from Middle French escroue, from Old French escroe, from Latin scrōfa, originally “sow (female pig)”;^[1] compare Occitan escrofa (“screw nut”), Sicilian scrufina (“screw nut”). The change in meaning is also found in Spanish puerca, Portuguese porca, both “sow; screw nut”, and is based on the fact that a boar's penis has a screw-like tip, making the sow's vulva equivalent to a screw nut by analogy.

écrou m (plural écrous)

1. nut (that fits on a bolt), female screw

From Middle French escroue (“register, file; piece, strip”) from Old French escroe, from Frankish *skrōda (“piece”). Compare English escrow, scroll.

écrou m (plural écrous)

2. prison register, prison admission form

• écrouer
• levée d'écrou

• “écrou”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

• coeur, cœur
• coure