gauche

Etymology

Borrowed from French gauche (“left, awkward”), from gauchir (“to veer, turn”), from Old French gaucher (“to trample, walk clumsily”), from Frankish *walkan (“to full, trample”), from Proto-Germanic *walkaną (“to full, roll up”). Akin to Old High German walchan (“to knead”), Old English wealcian (“to roll up, curl”) and English walk, Old Norse valka (“to drag about”). More at walk.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ɡəʊʃ/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ɡoʊʃ/

  (chemistry sense only) IPA^(key): /ɡaʊʃ/, /ɡoʊʃ/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -əʊʃ

Adjective

gauche (comparative more gauche, superlative most gauche)

1. Awkward or lacking in social graces; bumbling.
   • 19th century, Samuel Griswold Goodrich (1793-1860), The Spirit Court of Practice and Pretence:

     Seeking by vulgar pomp and gauche display

     In 'good society', to make her way

   • 1879, George Meredith, The Egoist, chapter XLVI

     She looked a trifle gauche, it struck me; more like a country girl with the hoyden taming in her than the well-bred creature she is.

   • 1895, H.G. Wells, The Wonderful Visit, Chapter 18:

     "He's a trifle gauche" said Lady Hammergallow, jumping upon the Vicar's attention. "He neither bows nor smiles. He must cultivate oddities like that. Every successful executant is more or less gauche."

2. (mathematics, archaic) Skewed, not plane.
3. (chemistry) Describing a torsion angle of 60°.

Anagrams

• guache

Etymology

From gauchir (“warp, distort”), a conflation of Old French gauchier (“tread”) (from Frankish *walkijan, *walkan, cognate with English walk) + Old French guenchir (“deviate”) (from Frankish *wenkijan (“to sway, falter”)). Gauche replaced the original word for "left", senestre, in the sixteenth century.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɡoʃ/

• Audio (FR)

  (file)

Adjective

gauche (plural gauches)

1. left
2. awkward, gawky
3. clumsy

Noun

gauche f (plural gauches)

1. the left, the left-hand side

gauche m (plural gauches)

1. (boxing) a left-hander, a southpaw

Further reading

• “gauche” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Pronunciation

• Audio (Jersey)

  (file)

Noun

gauche f (plural gauches)

1. (Jersey) left