English

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Etymology

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From French pur-sang (pure blood or thoroughbred (as used of a horse)), from pur (pure) and sang (blood).

Adjective

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pur sang (not comparable)

  1. (chiefly postpositive) Beyond doubt or being a model example; the ne plus ultra or epitome; the definitive.
    the Art Deco painter pur sang
    • 1860 May 26, “Punch’s Essence of Parliament”, in Punch, volume XXXVIII, page 209:
      The Duke of Punch is too true an Aristocrat, pur sang, to be afraid of avowing his liking for anything []
    • 1868, Elizabeth Lynn Linton, Modern women and what is said of them: Reprint of a series of articles in the Saturday review, J.S. Redfield:
      For it is only the old-fashioned sort, not girls of the period pur sang, that marry for love, or put the husband before the banker.
    • 1872 September – 1873 July, Thomas Hardy, “‘We Frolic while ’Tis May’”, in A Pair of Blue Eyes. [], volume II, London: Tinsley Brothers, [], published 1873, →OCLC, page 20:
      Three points about this unobtrusive person showed promptly to the exercised eye that he was not a Row man pur sang. First, an irrepressible wrinkle or two in the waist of his frock-coat—denoting that he had not damned his tailor sufficiently to drive that tradesman up to the orthodox high pressure of cunning workmanship.
    • 1906, Arthur Quiller-Couch, “The Famous Ballad of the Jubilee Cup”, in From a Cornish Window[1]:
      But she had the grand reach forward! I never saw such a line! / Smooth-bored, clean-run, from her fiddle head with its dainty ear half-cock, / Hard-bit, pur sang, from her overhang to the heel of her off hind sock.

Usage notes

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  • Because this is originally a French phrase, it is generally italicized when it is written.

Anagrams

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French

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Noun

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pur sang m (plural purs sangs)

  1. Alternative spelling of pur-sang

Adjective

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pur sang (plural purs sangs)

  1. Alternative spelling of pur-sang