double entendre en · NOUN
Pronunciation
- /dʌbəl ɑnˈtɑndrə/ (US, cot-caught-merger)
- /dʌbəl ɒnˈtɒndɹə/ (Anglicised, UK)
- /dubl ɑ̃tɑ̃ːdɹə/ (UK)
- (Australia) audio
- (US) audio
Etymology
According to Merriam-Webster and OED, from rare and obsolete French double entendre, which literally meant "double meaning" and was used in the senses of "double understanding" or "ambiguity", but acquired its current suggestive twist after being first used in English in 1673 by John Dryden. From French double (“double”) + entendre (“to understand, to mean”). The phrase has not been used in French for centuries and would be ungrammatical in modern French, therefore making it a pseudo-Gallicism. The closest modern equivalents are double sens, which often has (but not always) the suggestiveness of the English expression, and sous-entendu which implies a subtext.
Meanings
-
(rhetoric) A phrase that has two meanings, especially where one is innocent and literal, the other risqué, bawdy, or ironic; an innuendo.
Avoid all equivocal expressions, usually denominated double entendre; they are certain proofs of a mean and indelicate mind.
1812, A treatise on politeness, tr. from the French by a lady, page 172Churn and stick, and the agitation needed to make the butter, would obviously suggest sexual intercourse, and so the work song becomes an occasion for a series of double entendres in which the dairy maids could tease the men working in the vicinity and thus enact the courtship of Inanna and Dumuzi to make their work sacred.
1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 171:It is a momentous crusade without the cross; and an insidious one, for the calumnies and double entendre against the church are well wrapped up and keenly distributed.
1891, Paulist Fathers, Catholic World, page 785:It is not only the teacher's play with single words, phrases, and double entendre that are common in my classroom data.
2000, James P. Lantolf, Sociocultural Theory and Second Language Learning, page 126:(There are no double entendres in France, where the phrase does not exist or make sense.)
2016 October 13, Matthew Anderson, “The foreign words that seem like English – but aren’t”, in BBC, archived from the original on 14 Nov 2020:
Forms
| Spelling | Features | Labels | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| double entendres | Number=Plur | lexicographic | |
| doubles entendres | Number=Plur | nonstandard | lexicographic |
| double entendre | Number=Plur | nonstandard | lexicographic |
Relateds
equivocation · wordplay · triple entendre · equivoque · single entendre · double meaning
Translations (27)
de Zweideutigkeit (phrase with two meanings) · fi kaksimielisyys (phrase with two meanings) · tr çift anlamlı (phrase with two meanings) · cmn 雙關語 /双关语 (phrase with two meanings) · hu kétértelmű/félreérthető kifejezés (phrase with two meanings) · fr équivoque (phrase with two meanings) · es doble sentido (phrase with two meanings) · ca doble sentit (phrase with two meanings) · pl dwuznacznik (phrase with two meanings) · es albur (phrase with two meanings) · nb tvetydighet (phrase with two meanings) · nb dobbelttydighet (phrase with two meanings) · de Doppeldeutigkeit (phrase with two meanings) · cs dvojsmysl (phrase with two meanings) · nl dubbele bodem (phrase with two meanings) · it doppio senso (phrase with two meanings) · tr tevriye (phrase with two meanings) · ru двусмы́сленность (phrase with two meanings) · tr lastikli (phrase with two meanings) · th คำพูดสองแง่สองง่าม (phrase with two meanings) · fr double sens (phrase with two meanings) · hu kétértelműség (phrase with two meanings) · ja ダブル・ミーニング (phrase with two meanings) · ar تَوْرِيَة (phrase with two meanings) · pt duplo sentido (phrase with two meanings) · da tvetydighed (phrase with two meanings) · fr sous-entendu (phrase with two meanings)