Etymology

chatoyant

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Today it means: Having a certain optical reflectance effect, which can be likened to the sheen of a spool of silk. Full definition →

French chatoyant
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The story

  1. French · borrowed fromchatoyant
  2. English todaychatoyant

From French chatoyant, present participle of chatoyer (“to iridesce, like a cat's eye”), from chat (“cat”, because of the reflective qualities of a cat's eye).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.