belette

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belette

1. inflection of beletten:
   1. singular past indicative
   2. (dated or formal) singular past/present subjunctive

From Old French belette. Derivable from belle (“pretty”) +‎ -ette (diminutive ending). Compare Franco-Provençal belèta.

• IPA^(key): /bə.lɛt/

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belette f (plural belettes)

1. weasel (specifically, the least weasel)
   • 1857, Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary […]‎^[1], Paris: Michel Lévy Frères; republished as Eleanor Marx, transl., Madame Bovary, 1886:

     Souvent quelque bête nocturne, hérisson ou belette, se mettant en chasse, dérangeait les feuilles, ou bien on entendait par moments une pêche mûre qui tombait toute seule de l'espalier.

     Often some night-animal, hedgehog or weasel, setting out on the hunt, disturbed the lovers, or sometimes they heard a ripe peach falling all alone from the espalier.

• → Corsican: bellula, beddula (calque)

• “belette”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012