The dictionary is full of them.
Polysemous words, with the most respectable appearances, but endowed with a crisp second meaning, proliferate in the French language.
Thus the
“abbess”
, worthy
“superior of an abbey or of a monastery of a nun”
, also
“mistress of a house of prostitution”
.
Our words are often the image of what we are: equivocal.
Anthology.
● Cocotte
Adored by kings, writers, artists, wealthy aesthetes or sober commoners, the
casserole
is the queen of the Second Empire.
"A woman of light manners richly maintained"
, she often had huge sums of money!
They were called
“casseroles”
in reference to their laughter and their significant little cry to attract customers
: “chit!
chit! "
.
The casserole is not only synonymous with hen, but it more candidly designates a
"festoon hemming a work and notched like a hen"
, a
"small cast iron pot"
, or a
"pine cone"
...
● Tapin
Did you know that this word is more innocent than it sounds?
Before being a place of prostitution, and designating by metonymy a
"sidewalk girl"
, the hustler was a
"person who played the drum"
, as the Treasury of the French language emphasizes.
The word was formed from the verb
"to type"
and
"carpet"
, meaning
"a task that comes to the legs when you get too close"
.
In the 18th century, we find the word
“taloche”
, which in popular French gave our
“slap”
.
A
"hustler"
is also by extension a
"job"
, an
"occupation"
.
We also have the
"tapineur"
, synonymous with prostitute, borrowed from the
"tapiné"
, that is to say
"who has spots"
.
Stains that were probably found on the dresses of the women who walked from dawn to dusk on the muddy sidewalks of the capital.
● Candle
Imagine a romantic dinner by the flickering candle light.
Jewel of lovers, the candle rhymes with comfort, soft and warm atmosphere.
It also designates, let us say it elegantly, the
"virile member"
of the man.
Stendhal writes in his diary: “(...) When (...) M. told me that he did not often do this to Mme Pallard under the pretext that it was a great crime to blow the candle , it seemed to me that he was a hypocrite. "
The formula
"blowing the candle"
meaning to practice the
"coitus interruptus"
...
● Snuffbox
"I have good tobacco in my snuffbox ..."
.
Do you remember that childish song?
Innocent that we were, we had no idea that the
“snuffbox”
is not only this pot in which we store our tobacco ... and so much the better!
Because in popular slang, the word surreptitiously designates ... the anus.
● Corridor
"More or less narrow passage"
,
"corridor in an apartment, a house"
, from the Italian
correre, "to run"
(which gave the original meaning of the word "place where one runs), the word, a bit obsolete today, looks like vast houses populated by happy children.
The corridor is also used in a slang phrase:
“the corridor of the brave”
.
It poetically indicates the passage of the
candle
in the
feminine
rose
.