corpulence
English
Alternative forms
Etymology
From Old French corpulence, from Latin corpulentia.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈkɔː(ɹ)pjʊləns/
Audio (Southern England): (file) Audio (US): (file)
Noun
corpulence (countable and uncountable, plural corpulences)
- The characteristic or state of being corpulent.
- 1860, Richard F[rancis] Burton, “We Return to Unyanyembe”, in The Lake Regions of Central Africa: A Picture of Exploration […], volume II, London: Longman, Green, Longman and Roberts, →OCLC, page 182:
- Corpulence is a beauty: girls are fattened to a vast bulk by drenches of curds and cream thickened with flour, and are duly disciplined when they refuse.
Derived terms
Translations
characteristic or state of being corpulent
|
French
Etymology
Learned borrowing from Latin corpulentia.
Pronunciation
Noun
corpulence f (plural corpulences)
- corpulence (quality of being corpulent)
- 1857, Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary […][1], Paris: Michel Lévy Frères:
- Mais, le ressort du coté droit s'étant à la longue affaissé sous le poids de sa corpulence, il se faisait que la voiture penchait un peu tout en allant, et l'on apercevait sur l'autre coussin près de lui une vaste boîte, recouverte de basane rouge, dont les trois fermoirs de cuivre brillaient magistralement.
- (please add an English translation of this quotation)
Related terms
Further reading
- “corpulence”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012