fouet
English
Noun
fouet (plural fouets)
French
Etymology
From Middle French fouet, diminutive in -et of Old French fou (“beech”), from Latin fagus.
Since the morpheme boundary was no longer felt in Middle French, [u.ɛ] was contracted to [wɛ] and this later developed regularly to [wa] (as it did in oi, oe). The contemporary pronunciation was reinforced by the spelling and the desire to distinguish from foi, foie and fois.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /fwɛ/, (archaic) /fwa/
Audio: (file)
Noun
fouet m (plural fouets)
Derived terms
Descendants
Further reading
- “fouet”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
Norman
Etymology
From Old French fou (“beech”) + -et.
Noun
fouet m (plural fouets)
Derived terms
- donner du fouet (“to lash”)