bouleversement
Jul. 24th, 2009 07:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
prettygoodwordIt's Forgotten English Friday -- remember those? This was the word for 14 July, aka Bastille Day:
bouleversement - "A turning upsidedown, a violent inversion." —Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1888
Not quite forgotten -- it can be found in several contemporary dictionaries. From French, natch, first use from 1782, a few years before the first revolution -- from Old French bouleverser, to overturn from boule, ball (from Latin) + verser, to overturn, from Latin versāre, frequentative of vertere, to turn. Dictionaries disagree over whether there's four or five syllables there (and even, if four, whether it's the first or third -e- that's silent), but all agree it ends with a nasal -mäⁿ, so make whatever approximation to a French pronunciation you can.
---L.
bouleversement - "A turning upsidedown, a violent inversion." —Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1888
Not quite forgotten -- it can be found in several contemporary dictionaries. From French, natch, first use from 1782, a few years before the first revolution -- from Old French bouleverser, to overturn from boule, ball (from Latin) + verser, to overturn, from Latin versāre, frequentative of vertere, to turn. Dictionaries disagree over whether there's four or five syllables there (and even, if four, whether it's the first or third -e- that's silent), but all agree it ends with a nasal -mäⁿ, so make whatever approximation to a French pronunciation you can.
---L.
