rond-de-cuir
Contents
EnglishEdit
EtymologyEdit
From French rond-de-cuir.
PronunciationEdit
NounEdit
rond-de-cuir (plural ronds-de-cuir)
- A French bureaucrat or functionary; an office worker.
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2013 March 11, Lara Marlowe, “Magic of living in Paris punctures pain of endless French bureaucracy”, in The Irish Times[1]:
- In 1893, Georges Courteline immortalised France's petty bureaucrats in a satirical novel called Messieurs les Ronds-de-Cuir, after the leather cushions that civil servants sat on. The "ronds-de-cuir" are still ridiculed and detested. Like Courteline's bureaucrats, the tormentors of the préfecture derive sadistic pleasure from sending people away for ever more documents.
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- (colloquial, pejorative) A pen-pusher.
ReferencesEdit
- "rond de cuir, n.". OED Online. March 2013. Oxford University Press. 14 March 2013
FrenchEdit
PronunciationEdit
NounEdit
rond-de-cuir m (plural ronds-de-cuir)
- doughnut-shaped leather cushion to relieve haemorrhoids
- (colloquial, pejorative) pen-pusher
- leather patch (for elbows of clothing)
ReferencesEdit
- "ROND-DE-CUIR. n. m. Il se dit familièrement et par plaisanterie des Employés de bureau", Dictionnaire de l'Académie française, eighth edition, 1932-1935
- rond-de-cuir, Collins Dictionary
Further readingEdit
- “rond-de-cuir” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).