pique-devant
English
editAlternative forms
edit- pickadevant, pick-a-devant, pickadevaunt, pickdevant, pickedevant, pickerdevant, pike devant, pique de vant
Etymology
editProbably coined in England, from French pique (“pike, spade (cards)”) or piquer (“to prick”) + devant (“in front”)
Noun
editpique-devant (plural pique-devants)
- (obsolete, historical) A small beard trimmed to a sharp point.[1] [16th–17th c.]
- 1587, Raphael Holinshed et al., Holinshed’s Chronicle[2], London: Henry Denham, Book 2, Chapter 7, p. 172:
- Neither will I meddle with our varietie of beards, of which some are shauen from the chin like those of Turks, not a few cut short like to the beard of marques Otto, some made round like a rubbing brush, other with a pique de vant (O fine fashion!) or now and then suffered to grow long, the barbers being growen to be so cunning in this behalfe as the tailors.
- 1596, Thomas Nashe, Have with You to Saffron-Walden[3], London: John Danter:
- twice double his Patrimonie hath he spent in carefull cherishing & preseruing his pickerdeuant
- 1604, Christopher Marlowe, The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus[4], London: Thomas Bushell:
- Wag[ner]. Sirra boy, come hither.
Clo[wn]. How, boy? swowns boy, I hope you haue séene many boyes with such pickadevaunts as I haue.
- 1638, Richard Baker, transl., New Epistles of Mounsieur de Balzac […] Being the second and third volumes[5], London: Fra. Eglesfield, John Crooke, and Rich. Serger, Letter 51, p. 108:
- I have seene the Cavalier you have so often spoken of, and I thinke you judge verie rightlie of him. Hee consists wholly of a Pickedevant [in the French original: la pointe de sa barbe], and two Mustachoes: and therefore utterly to defeate him, there needes but three clippes of a paire of Cizers.
- 1688, Randle Holme III, The Academy of Armory[6], Chester, Book 2, p. 389:
- In the Sinister Chief is set another sort of a full Face with a sharp pointed Beard, and is termed in Blazon, a Mans face with a Pick-a-devant, (or sharp pointed) Beard.