taille

See also: Taille, taillé, and táille

English

Etymology

From French taille (“cut”, noun).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /taɪ/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aɪ
• Homophones: tie, Ty

Noun

taille (countable and uncountable, plural tailles)

1. (historical) A form of taxation levied on the land of peasants in pre-Revolutionary France.
   • 2002, Colin Jones, The Great Nation, Penguin 2003, p. 143:

     The main royal tax was the taille, a tax on landed wealth, distributed among the généralités and assessed and levied in a variety of ways, and it was supplemented by a range of other direct taxes [...].

2. (obsolete) A tally; an account scored on a piece of wood.
   • 1387–1400, Geoffrey Chaucer, “The Prologues”, in The Canterbury Tales, [Westminster: William Caxton, published 1478], OCLC 230972125; republished in [William Thynne], editor, The Workes of Geffray Chaucer Newlye Printed, […], [London]: […] [Richard Grafton for] Iohn Reynes […], 1542, OCLC 932884868:

     Whether that he payde or toke by tayle.

3. (music, obsolete) The tenor voice or part.
4. (music, obsolete) The part for the tenor viol or viola.

Related terms

• tallage (“a tax”)

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for taille in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.)

Anagrams

• tallie

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Dutch

Etymology

Borrowed from French taille, from Latin talea.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈtɑ.jə/

• Audio

  (file)

• Hyphenation: tail‧le

Noun

taille f (plural tailles, diminutive tailletje n)

1. waistline

Derived terms

• wespentaille

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French

Etymology

From Old French taille, from Latin talea (“a cutting”). Compare Italian taglia.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /taj/

• audio

  (file)

Noun

taille f (plural tailles)

1. the act of cutting, pruning, trimming

   Synonym: coupe

2. size

   Synonyms: grandeur, gabarit

3. waist
   • 2005, Marc-André Wagner, Le cheval dans les croyances germaniques: paganisme, christianisme et traditions [The Horse in Germanic Beliefs: Paganism, Christianity, and Traditions], Honoré Champion, →ISBN:

     Le dernier type est le "cheval-jupon", un terme que l'ethnologue réserve à un déguisement pour une personne, constitué comme suit : le corps de la personne est entouré à la taille par un tissu — le jupon — recouvrant l'essentiel de ses jambes, une tête du cheval en bois […]

     The last type is the "hobby horse", a term which Ethnologue reserves for a disguise for a person, made as follows: the body of the person is surrounded at the waist by a cloth — the skirt — covering most of his legs; a horse's head of wood […]

4. waistline
5. a direct tax levied during the Ancien Régime; tallage

Derived terms

• de taille
• pierre de taille
• taillable
• taille de guêpe
• tour de taille

 

Related terms

• tailler

Descendants

• → Danish: talje

Further reading

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

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Middle English

Noun

taille

1. Alternative form of tayl

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Old French

Etymology

From Latin tālea (“a cutting”).

Noun

taille f (oblique plural tailles, nominative singular taille, nominative plural tailles)

1. cut (act; instance of cutting)
2. cut; wound; incision (result of being cut)
3. cut (of clothing)
4. a count kept by carving notches into a stick
5. (by extension) a count; a tally
6. charge; levy; taxation; tax

Descendants

• French: taille
  • → English: taille
• → English: tally
• → Irish: táille

References

• Godefroy, Frédéric, Dictionnaire de l'ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IX^e au XV^e siècle (1881) (taille, supplement)
• taille on the Anglo-Norman On-Line Hub