fleur de lis

See also: fleur-de-lis and Fleur-de-lis

English

Noun

fleur de lis (plural fleurs de lis or fleur de lises or fleur de lisses)

1. Alternative form of fleur-de-lis
   • 1770, Gentleman’s Museum and Grand Imperial Magazine, page 256:

     In the 1ſt. Column are eighteen figures, each of which repreſents ten men (180) who have taken up the axe and war-kettle in favour of the French, as by the Fleur de Liſſes on the kettle.

   • 1779, John Collinson, The Beauties of British Antiquity; Selected from the Writings of Esteemed Antiquaries. With Notes and Observations, London: […] the Author, page 235:

     At the weſt end is a ſpacious window, with much of its glaſs finely ſtained; beſides which there are thirteen others above, and as many below in the north and ſouth iſles, painted with fleur de liſes, roſes, and portculliſes crowned, and another at the weſt end of each iſle.

   • 1843, “The Armorial Bearings of the Sheriffs of Norfolk”, in Vicecomites Norfolciæ, or Sheriffs of Norfolk from the First Year of Henry the Second, to the Fourth of Queen Victoria, Inclusive; Chronologically and Alphabetically Arranged, with Their Armorial Bearings, Stow Bardolph:

     Azure, semée of fleur de lises, a lion rampant, guardant argent.

   • 1851, Half Hours of English History, part VI, pages 85 and 228:

     […] he left the bearing of the arms of England, as the libards and fleur de lises quarterly, and bare the arms of this saint Edward, that is a cross patent, gold and goules, with four white martinets in the field: […] In the church of Boulogne was a traverse set up for the French king, open on every side, saving it was siled with blue velvet, embroidered with fleur de lises gold; the pillars were hanged with the same work.

   • 1859, William Fraser, editor, Memorials of the Montgomeries, Earls of Eglinton, Edinburgh, page 168:

     Quarterly, first and fourth, azure, three fleur de lisses, Or;

   • 1901, Maria Hornor Lansdale, Scotland : Historic and Romantic, page 282:

     […] Scott of Thirlstane was “willing to gang with us into England, when all our nobles and others refuised, he was ready to stake all at our bidding,” there should be granted to him “ane border of fleur de lises about his coatte of armor, sic as is on our royal banner; and alsua ane bundell of launces above his helmet, with thir words, Readdy, ay Ready. . . .”

   • 1999, Jennifer Michel Spear, Whiteness and the Purity of Blood: Race, Sexuality, and Social Order in Colonial Louisiana, page 118:

     If convicted of running away, slaves had their hamstrings cut, fleur de lises branded on their shoulders, or were even executed, a punishment that historian Marcel Giraud asserts was fairly frequent.

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /flœʁ də lis/

• Audio (Paris)

  (file)

Noun

fleur de lis f (plural fleurs de lis)

1. (heraldry) fleur-de-lis

Derived terms

• fleurdeliser

Descendants

• → Russian: флёр-де-лис (fljór-dɛ-lis)