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Webster 1913 Edition


Douce

Douce

,
Adj.
[F.
doux
, masc.,
douce
, fem., sweet, fr. L.
duleis
sweet.]
1.
Sweet; pleasant.
[Obs.]
2.
Sober; prudent; sedate; modest.
[Scot.]
And this is a
douce
, honest man.
Sir W. Scott.

Definition 2024


douce

douce

English

Adjective

douce (comparative more douce, superlative most douce)

  1. (obsolete) Sweet, nice, pleasant.
  2. (dialect) Serious and quiet; steady, not flighty or casual; sober.
    • 1932, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Sunset Song, Polygon 2006 (A Scots Quair), p. 27:
      what would you say of a man with plenty of silver that bided all by his lone and made his own bed and did his own baking when he might have had a wife to make him douce and brave?
    • 1992, Hilary Mantel, A Place of Greater Safety, Harper Perennial 2007, p. 145:
      If Fabre, for example, were elected to the Academy tomorrow, you would see his lust for social revolution turning overnight into the most douce and debonair conformity.
    • 1996, Alasdair Gray, ‘The Story of a Recluse’, Canongate 2012 (Every Short Story 1951-2012), p. 271:
      So what strong lord of misrule can preside in this douce, commercially respectable, late 19th century city where even religious fanaticism reinforces un adventurous mediocrity?

Derived terms


French

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /dus/

Adjective

douce

  1. feminine singular of doux

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