gauche

English

WOTD – 20 April 2006

Etymology

From French gauche (“left, awkward”), from French gauchir (“to veer, turn”), from Old French gaucher (“to trample, walk clumsily”), from Frankish welkan "to full, trample" from Proto-Germanic *welk- (“to full, roll up”). Akin to Old High German walchan (“to knead”), Old English wealcian (“to roll up, curl”), Old Norse valka (“to drag about”). More at walk

Pronunciation

Adjective

gauche (comparative more gauche, superlative most gauche)

Awkward or lacking in social graces; bumbling.
- "Seeking by vulgar pomp and gauche display" — Samuel Griswold (1793-1860)
(mathematics, archaic) Skewed, not plane.
(chemistry) Describing a torsion angle of 60°

Synonyms

(lacking in social graces): graceless, tactless, unsophisticated, unpolished, gawky

Antonyms

(lacking in social graces): adroit

Translations

awkward, bumbling

Chinese: 粗魯的 (cūlǔde)
Estonian: taktitu (et)
Finnish: kömpelö (fi), moukkamainen (fi), tahditon (fi)
French: gauche (fr)
Georgian: ხეპრე (ka) (xepre)

German: unbeholfen, linkisch
Ido: ne-habila
Maori: tāhapa (mi)
Russian: неуклюжий (ru) (neukljužij)
Spanish: torpe (es)

Anagrams

guache

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French

Etymology

From gauchir (“warp, distort”), a conflation of Old French gauchier (“tread”) (from Frankish *walkan, cognate with English walk) + Old French guenchir (“deviate”) (from Frankish *wenkjan (“sway, falter”)). Gauche replaced the original word for "left", senestre, in the sixteenth century.