ménage
English edit
Alternative forms edit
Etymology edit
Borrowed from French ménage; compare Middle English menage, a parallel borrowing from an earlier form of the French word.
Pronunciation edit
Noun edit
ménage (plural ménages)
- A household; a domestic situation. [from 17th c.]
- 1838 (date written), L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XIII, in Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping up Appearances. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], published 1842, →OCLC, page 167:
- "Oh," cried her ladyship, "I see the whole ménage; they will take a first floor over a baker's shop, to save fire, and live upon red herrings during the week, with a mutton chop by way of meat on a Sunday."
- 1939, Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep, Penguin, published 2011, page 39:
- It smelled of ether and something else, possibly laudanum. I had never tried the mixture but it seemed to go pretty well with the Geiger ménage.
- (now Scotland) A type of cooperative society whereby all members pay a regular sum of savings, or through which goods can be paid for in installments. [from 19th c.]
- Hypernym: ROSCA
- A group of people in a sexual relationship; especially, such a group that live together; the relationship itself. [from 20th c.]
- Hyponyms: ménage à trois, ménage à quatre, ménage à moi
Anagrams edit
French edit
Etymology edit
Inherited from Middle French mesnage, from Old French manage, mainage, from manoir, maneir, maindre, from Latin manēre. The Old French forms maisnage, mesnage were influenced by the word maisnée, maisnede, from Vulgar Latin *mā(n)siōnāta (French maisonnée), from Latin mānsiō (which also became French maison).
Pronunciation edit
Noun edit
ménage m (plural ménages)
- housework, housekeeping
- household
- les ménages les moins aisés
- the least well-off households
Derived terms edit
Descendants edit
Further reading edit
- “ménage”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
Anagrams edit
Portuguese edit
Etymology edit
Unadapted borrowing from French ménage.
Pronunciation edit
Noun edit
ménage m or f (plural ménages)
- domestic life
- household (everyone who lives in a given house)
- Clipping of ménage à trois.