début

See also: debut and Debüt

English

Alternative forms

Etymology

Borrowed from French début, from débuter (“begin, start, lead off”).[1]

Pronunciation

Noun

début (plural débuts)

  1. (chiefly of public perfomers)[1] A person’s or thing’s first appearance before society or another audience; one’s “maiden voyage”.[1]

Translations

Verb

début (third-person singular simple present débuts, present participle débuting, simple past and past participle débuted)

  1. To make one's début.[1]

Usage notes

  • (applicable to all senses) On first reading by a person unfamiliar with this term, debut may be mispronounced [dɪˈbʌt] (cf. rebut) if it is written without the disambiguating acute accent.

Translations

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 “début, n.” listed in the Oxford English Dictionary [2nd Ed.; 1989]
  2. ↑ A Dictionary of Modern English Usage by H. W. Fowler (1926; Oxford at the Clarendon Press; London: Humphrey Milford), page 104; début, débutant(e). Début can only be pronounced as French […]
  • The Oxford English Dictionary defines début but does not list debut.

Anagrams

French

Etymology

From Middle French, derivative of desbuter (“to move, begin”), from des- + but (“mark, goal”), from Old French but (“aim, goal, end, target”), either from Old French butte (“mound, knoll, target”), from Frankish *but (“stump, log”), or from Old Norse bútr (“log, stump, butt”); both from Proto-Germanic *butą (“end, piece”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰewd- (“to beat, push”).[1] Cognate with Old English butt (“tree stump”). More at English butt.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /de.by/
  • audio(file)

Noun

début m (plural débuts)

  1. start, beginning

Derived terms

Descendants

References

  1. ↑ Kluge, Friedrich (1989), Elmar Seebold, editor, Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache [Etymological dictionary of the German language] (in German), 22nd edition, →ISBN

Further reading

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