trenchant
English edit
Alternative forms edit
- trenchaunt (obsolete)
Etymology edit
Borrowed into Middle English from Old French trenchant, the present participle of trenchier (“to cut”).
Pronunciation edit
Adjective edit
trenchant (comparative more trenchant, superlative most trenchant)
- (obsolete) Fitted to trench or cut; gutting; sharp.
- 1663, Samuel Butler, Hudibras, part 1, canto 1:
- The trenchant blade, Toledo trusty, / For want of fighting was grown rusty, / And ate into itself, for lack / Of somebody to hew and hack.
- (zoology, of teeth) Adapted for tearing into flesh.
- 1971, Thomas H. V. Rich, Deltatheridia, Carnivora, and Condylarthra (Mammalia) of the Early Eocene, Paris Basin, France:
- The trenchant talonid is a character of some miacids and distinguishes these teeth from the hyaenodontids and oxyaenids.
- (figuratively) Keen; biting; vigorously articulate and effective; severe.
- trenchant wit
- 1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, part I, pages 210–211:
- His eyes, of the usual blue, were perhaps remarkably cold, and he certainly could make his glance fall on one as trenchant and heavy as an axe.
- 2011, Jay A. Gertzman, Bookleggers and Smuthounds: The Trade in Erotica, 1920-1940:
- His trenchant criticisms of the Church's repression […] include a discussion of the considerable 1938 success of the fledgling NODL in getting magazines removed from various points of sale.
Translations edit
sharp
biting, severe
|
Middle French edit
Etymology edit
Noun edit
trenchant m or f (plural trenchans)
Descendants edit
- French: tranchant
Old French edit
Adjective edit
trenchant m (oblique and nominative feminine singular trenchant or trenchante)
Declension edit
Declension of trenchant
Number | Case | Masculine | Feminine | Neuter |
---|---|---|---|---|
Singular | Subject | trenchanz | trenchant, trenchante | trenchant |
Oblique | trenchant | |||
Plural | Subject | trenchant | trenchanz, trenchantes | |
Oblique | trenchanz |
Verb edit
trenchant