frou-frou
English
editAlternative forms
editEtymology
editBorrowed from French frou-frou, an onomatopoeia.
Pronunciation
editNoun
editfrou-frou (plural frou-frous)
- (onomatopoeia) A rustling sound, particularly the rustling of a large silk dress.
- 1870 June 4, Athenaeum, page 734:
- The modern frou-frou of satin and gros-de-Naples skirts is nothing to the rustling of brocaded silks.
- 1876, William Besant et al., The Golden Butterfly, act I, scene vi, line 108:
- […] the frou-frou of life was lost to her […]
- 1901, Jack London, “The Great Interrogation”, in The God of His Fathers[1], New York: McClure, Phillips & Co., page 34:
- She was pretty, charming, and, moreover, a widow. And because of this she at once had at heel any number of Eldorado Kings, officials, and adventuring younger sons, whose ears were yearning for the frou-frou of a woman’s skirts.
- 1904 December, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “The Adventure of the Second Stain”, in The Return of Sherlock Holmes, New York, N.Y.: McClure, Phillips & Co., published February 1905, →OCLC:
- “Now, Watson, the fair sex is your department,” said Holmes, with a smile, when the dwindling frou-frou of skirts had ended in the slam of the front door.
- 1905 January 12, Baroness Orczy [i.e., Emma Orczy], The Scarlet Pimpernel, popular edition, London: Greening & Co., published 20 March 1912, →OCLC, page 94:
- Lord Grenville took a hasty farewell of the ladies and slipped back into his box, where M. Chauvelin had sat all through this entr’acte, with his eternal snuff-box in his hand, and with his keen pale eyes intently fixed upon a box opposite to him, where, with much frou-frou of silken skirts, much laughter and general stir of curiosity amongst the audience, […]
- 2014 September 6, Tony Roberts, “Poem to a Friend Feeling Out of His Element”, in The Guardian[2], →ISSN:
- Impervious to the cheap perfumes
and the frou-frou of young ladies' skirts,
he finally and with deepest dread
plunged ahead, banging in his ignorance
on the keys as if they were a snare drum.
Adjective
editfrou-frou (comparative more frou-frou, superlative most frou-frou)
- Liable to create the sound of rustling cloth, similar to 19th-century dresses.
- Highly ornamented, overly elaborate; excessively girly.
- They ate in a frou-frou restaurant at the top of a skyscraper.
- 2009 September 1, Michael Chapman; Matthew Chapman, “Strong Bad Email #204: dictionary”, in Homestar Runner[3], spoken by Strong Bad (Matthew Chapman):
- Kinda like a frou-frou dessert at a chichi restaurant, restaurant.
- 2023 January 21, Andrew Lawrence, “Netflix’s Reed Hastings changed the way we watch TV – for better or for worse”, in The Guardian[5], →ISSN:
- For the price of a frou-frou Starbucks drink, a Netflix subscriber could binge this content ad nauseam without suffering through a single commercial – the ideal home viewing experience.
- (derogatory) Unimportant, silly, useless.
- 2008 July 15, Matthew Yglesias, “Obama's Elitism Problem, Continued”, in The Atlantic[6]:
- Barack Obama, out of touch with the working man as usual, has an aggressive program for carbon emissions reductions and has spoken of the need for such frou-frou measures as increased investment in transit infrastructure, intercity rail, and even bicycling.
- 2024 September 28, HarryBlank, “Not Ready for Prime Time”, in SCP Foundation[7], archived from the original on 29 September 2024:
- Dr. Okorie: Those paintings on the walls have a definite effect on people. A very specific definite effect, with wildly variable results. Would you call them de-inhibitors, Lillian?
Dr. Lillihammer: I'd call them cognition divergence vectors. I've already got the paper half-written in my mind.
Dr. Blank: Explain it to us froufrou hard and social scientists.
Verb
editfrou-frou (third-person singular simple present frou-frous, present participle frou-frouing, simple past and past participle frou-froued)
- (uncommon, intransitive) To move with the sound of rustling dresses.
- 1894 October, The Vassar Miscellany, volume 26, page 81:
- “Oh, you funny girl! You look so surprised. Confess, now, there's nothing you can hide from me,” and ruffling my hair as she passed she frou-froued out of the room.
- 1905 May 18, Truth, page 1289:
- […] frou-frouing femininities […]
Usage notes
editAlmost exclusively seen in the form frou-frouing.
References
edit- “frou-frou, n.”, in OED Online , Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021.
- “frou-frou, v.”, in OED Online , Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021.
French
editEtymology
editPronunciation
editNoun
editfrou-frou m (plural frous-frous)
- a frou-frou; a rustling sound, as of silk fabric
Derived terms
editDescendants
editFurther reading
edit- “frou-frou”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
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- en:Sexism
- French onomatopoeias
- French 2-syllable words
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- fr:Sound