English edit

Etymology edit

Borrowed from French flambeau.

Pronunciation edit

  • (UK) IPA(key): /ˈflambəʊ/, /flamˈbəʊ/

Noun edit

flambeau (plural flambeaus or flambeaux)

  1. A burning torch, especially one carried in procession.
    • 1837, Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution: A History [], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Chapman and Hall, →OCLC, (please specify the book or page number):
      Saint-Antoine has its cannon pointed (full of grapeshot); thrice applies the lit flambeau; which thrice refuses to catch,—the touchholes are so wetted....
    • 1865, Walt Whitman, “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d”, in Sequel to Drum-Taps: When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d and other poems:
      [] With processions long and winding and the flambeaus of the night, / With the countless torches lit, with the silent sea of faces and the unbared heads, []
    • 1980, Gene Wolfe, chapter XIV, in The Shadow of the Torturer (The Book of the New Sun; 1), New York: Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, pages 131–132:
      There were flambeaux on staggering poles every ten strides or so, and at intervals of about a hundred strides, bartizans whose guardroom windows glared like fireworks clung to the bridge piers.
    • 1982, Lawrence Durrell, Constance (Avignon Quintet), Faber & Faber, published 2004, page 955:
      She walked quietly with apparent composure and lowered head but her pallor betrayed her mortal fear – her skin glowed almost nacrous in the warm rose of the flambeaux.

Translations edit

See also edit

French edit

Etymology edit

From flambe +‎ -eau.

Noun edit

flambeau m (plural flambeaux)

  1. torch
  2. candle
  3. candlestick
  4. (metonymically) light, flame as symbolic spirit of something

Derived terms edit

Descendants edit

  • Dutch: flambouw
  • Spanish: flambó

References edit