petit-gris

French

Etymology

Compare German Grauwerk for the fur.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /pə.ti.ɡʁi/

• Audio:

  (file)

Noun

petit-gris m (plural petits-gris)

1. the Eurasian red squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris), which in colder areas (i.e. Russia whence fur has been imported) has more gray or white fur (and therefore has also been called Sciurus cinereus)
2. gray squirrel (Sciurus griseus)
3. Siberian chipmunk (Tamias sibiricus)
4. fur of any such animal
5. paintbrush from such a fur
6. escargot petit-gris, which is the garden snail (Cornu aspersum, Helix aspersa)
7. Tricholoma myomyces
8. petit-gris de Rennes, a certain cultivar of melon
9. gray feather obtained from a female ostrich under her venter

   Coordinate term: petit-noir

Derived terms

• petit-gris blanc
• petit-gris bleu
• petit-gris commun
• petit-gris noir

 

Further reading

• “petit-gris”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
• Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (a. 1789) Oeuvres complètes de Buffon, volume 16, Paris: F.D. Pillot, published 1830 ^GB, pages 190 and 195, pictured between 186–187; he distinguishes from the polatouche (Pteromys volans) the fur of which however was even a century later mixed with gray squirrel to impose on the purchaser, so petit-gris could also “mean” that.
• Aydın, Erhan (2006) “Bilge kagan yazıtında geçen kök teyeŋ hayvan adı üzerine”, in Büyük Türk Dili Kurultayı Bildirileri‎^[1] (in Turkish), Ankara, which relates the Turkish equivalent expression for “gray squirrel” (often sloppily translated so in English and in French as “petit gris”) to the bobak marmot (Marmota bobak or Marmota bobak subsp. sibirica)

Italian

Etymology

Borrowed from French petit-gris.

Noun

petit-gris m (invariable)

1. fur of the animals signified above in the French section