double entendre

The story

1. French · derived fromdouble“double”
2. English todaydouble entendre

According to Merriam-Webster and OED, from rare and obsolete French double entendre, which literally meant "double meaning" and was used in the senses of "double understanding" or "ambiguity", but acquired its current suggestive twist after being first used in English in 1673 by John Dryden. From French double (“double”) + entendre (“to understand, to mean”). The phrase has not been used in French for centuries and would be ungrammatical in modern French, therefore making it a pseudo-Gallicism. The closest modern equivalents are double sens, which often has (but not always) the suggestiveness of the English expression, and sous-entendu which implies a subtext.

Words from the same roots