garçonnière

English

WOTD – 3 August 2011

Etymology

From French garçonnière.

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ɡɑɹsənˈjɛɚ/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ɡɑːsənˈjɛə/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• Hyphenation: gar‧çon‧nière
• Rhymes: -ɛə(ɹ)

Noun

garçonnière (plural garçonnières)

1. A bachelor pad.
   • 1957, Lawrence Durrell, Justine:

     He did not care for money, except to spend it – that was the first: the second was that he did not own a garçonnière, and appeared to be faithful to Justine – an unheard of state of affairs.

   • 1969, Vladimir Nabokov, Ada or Ardor, Penguin, published 2011, page 16:

     She [...] fell grievously in love there with a married man, who after one summer of parvenu passion dispensed to her in his Camping Ford garçonnière preferred to give her up rather than run the risk of endangering his social situation [...].

Translations

bachelor pad — see bachelor pad

French

Etymology

From garçon +‎ -ière.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɡaʁ.sɔ.njɛʁ/

Noun

garçonnière f (plural garçonnières)

1. bachelor pad
   • 1924, Emmanuel Bove, Mes Amis‎^[1]:

     Des passants nous épieraient. Je ferais semblant de ne pas les voir. Je recevrais ma maîtresse dans une garçonnière au rez-de-chaussée d’une maison neuve.

     Passers-by would spy on us. I would pretend not to see them. I would see my mistress in a bachelor flat on the ground floor of a new house.

   • 2023, Frédéric Beigbeder, Confessions d'un hétérosexuel légèrement dépassé, Paris: Albin Michel, →ISBN, page 24:

     En effet, en février 2003 (la même année) une autre victime de tentative de viol m’a raconté des faits similaires (plaquée par terre par un homme politique dans sa garçonnière de nuit) et je l’ai crue tout de suite, sans « exploser de rire ».

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

2. (Louisiana) an attic, usually accessed from the front porch, where the male children of a household traditionally slept

Adjective

garçonnière

1. feminine singular of garçonnier

Descendants

• → English: garçonnière
• → Greek: γκαρσονιέρα (gkarsoniéra)
• → Italian: garçonnière
• → Polish: garsoniera
• → Portuguese: garçonnière
• → Romanian: garsonieră

Further reading

• “garçonnière”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Italian

Etymology

Borrowed from French garçonnière.

Noun

garçonnière f (invariable)

1. bachelor pad
2. love nest, fuckpad

   Synonym: scannatoio

Portuguese

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from French garçonnière.

Noun

garçonnière f (uncountable)

1. (Brazil) love nest