Word origins

• visagisteA make-up artist.
• vis-à-visIn relation to; compared with.
• visévisa.
• vitrageA curtain of light translucent material intended to be secured directly to the woodwork of a French window or glazed door.
• vitraillistAn artist who uses stained glass as a medium.
• VitréA commune of Ille-et-Vilaine department, Brittany, France.
• vitriolageThe act of vitriolizing someone; the act of committing an acid attack.
• vituperousVituperative.
• vivandierA sutler accompanying a continental European army, especially the French army.
• vivandièreA female vivandier.
• viversprovisions; victuals
• viveurSomeone who lives well.
• viviparyReproduction via embryos that develop from the outset without interruption (as opposed to germinating from a seed).
• vizierateThe office, dignity, or authority of a vizier.
• VodouisantA practitioner of voodoo.
• voilàLo, there it is; ta-da; presto; behold!
• voituretteA small, compact car.
• voix célesteAn organ stop consisting of either one or two ranks of pipes slightly out of tune, so as to produce a beating effect when combined with a normally tuned rank.
• vol-au-ventA small circular piece of puff pastry with a hole for various fillings, such as mushrooms, prawns, fruit, cheese, etc.
• volplaneA steep, controlled dive, especially by an aircraft with the engine off.
• volte-faceA reversal of attitude, policy, or principle.
• voltigeurOne of a picked company of skirmishers in each regiment of the French infantry during the Napoleonic Wars.
• -voltineHaving a certain number of broods or generations in a year.
• voluptuaryOne whose life is devoted to sensual appetites; a pleasure-seeker, a sensualist.
• voulgeA medieval poleaxe bearing resemblance to a glaive or a Lochaber ax, although the blade portion is somewhat more elongated.
• voulgierA fighter armed with a voulge, particularly in a French military context.
• voussoirOne of a series of wedge-shaped bricks or stones forming an arch or vault.
• vouvoyTo address (someone) in French using the formal second-person pronoun vous.
• voyeuseA female voyeur; a woman who derives sexual pleasure from secretly observing other people.
• vraisemblanceverisimilitude
• vrilleA tailspin.
• VuillardianOf or relating to Édouard Vuillard (1868–1940), French painter and artist.
• wagon-litA sleeping car, often used in international trains in continental Europe; the Wagons-Lits company also ran dining cars.
• WalcourtA city in Namur Province, Belgium.
• WallingantismThe ideology which supports Walloon autonomy or independence; Walloon nationalism.
• warineA guariba: a South American monkey (sapajou).
• water sapphireA deep blue variety of iolite, sometimes used as a gem.
• WatremezA surname from French.
• wattmanA French tram driver.
• well-made playA play belonging to a 19th-century neoclassical theatrical genre involving a tight plot and a climax close to the end. The story depends upon a key piece of information kept from some characters, and moves forward in a chain of actions that use minor reversals of fortune to create suspense.
• Welsh MarchesThe lands in the vicinity of the Welsh-English border.
• WervicqSynonym of Wervik.
• Wervicq-SudA commune of Nord department, Hauts-de-France, France.
• whallahvoila; ta-da, presto; lo and behold
• whip-arseA schoolmaster.
• white marriageAn unconsummated marriage.
• white peaceA peace agreement after a war, in which the parties do not impose onerous terms on one other.
• Wilhelmina BayA bay of Antarctica.
• winter melonBenincasa hispida, a species of the gourd family (Cucurbitaceae) commonly cultivated in Asia.
• WisconsiniteOf, or from, the state of Wisconsin.
• WissantA commune of Pas-de-Calais department, France.
• wistitiA marmoset, principally in family Callitrichidae.
• with the mannerin the very act; red-handed.
• witzchouraA woman's fur-lined cloak, mantle, or pelisse with large sleeves, worn during the early 19th century.
• world cupThe FIFA World Cup, a quadrennial international competition of national teams in men's association football and the trophy awarded to the winning team.
• xantheinThe water-soluble part of the yellow carotenoid pigment present in the cell sap of some plants.
• xenismA word used in utterances of a language but generally marked as foreign.
• xenoglossyKnowledge of a language one has never learned.
• xylographyThe art of making xylographs.
• xylothequeA collection of samples of various types of wood.
• yellow jerseyEspecially in the Tour de France: the yellow shirt worn by the leader of a stage of a cycling race, which is then awarded to the cyclist who wins the race with the fastest overall time.
• yellow vestA member of a French protest movement which started in late 2018 against rising fuel prices and advocates for economic justice and institutional political reforms.
• yé-yéA genre of pop music of the early 1960s in Europe.
• -ylA univalent radical or functional group formed from a given molecule. Thus propyl from propane, benzyl from benzene, and so forth.
• young TurkFrom the late-19th to the early-20th century, a member of a movement that campaigned for reform of the Ottoman Empire.
• yperiteSynonym of mustard gas.
• YpresianOf or pertaining to a geological epoch, the oldest age or lowest stratigraphic stage of the Eocene.
• ZaghouanA town in Tunisia.
• zangeeThe marbled swamp eel (Synbranchus marmoratus).
• zaptiehA Turkish policeman.
• ZeccoA town in southern Burkina Faso, 2 miles from the border with Ghana
• zemidjanA motorcycle taxi found in Benin.
• zéphireA small dish of forcemeat, typically cooked in a mold and served with a rich sauce.
• ZeraldaA commune and municipality in Algiers Province, Algeria.
• zgougouThe edible pine nuts of the Aleppo pine, used to make a variety of dishes.
• zibelineA thick, soft woolen fabric with a long nap.
• zinc whiteA form of zinc oxide powder used as an artist's pigment.
• zombitudeThe condition of being, resembling, or acting like a zombie.
• zoolatryThe worship of animals.
• zorilleAny member of species Ictonyx striatus of small, carnivorous, nocturnal African mammals, resembling a skunk.
• zygoteneThe intimate pairing of homologous chromosomes during the synaptic stage of meiosis