béguin

/beˈɡiːn/

noun

An infatuation or fancy.

OriginFrench béguin →
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Meanings

nounbéguin (plural béguins)

plural béguins

  1. An infatuation or fancy.

    ‘I see now. And you have a béguin for her too? It is no use, I warn you.’

    1972, Patrick O'Brian, Post Captain
    1 more example

    Then he said: 'But what does Ata say to it?' 'It appears that she has a beguin for you,' I said. 'She's willing if you are. Shall I call her?'

    1919, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, “chapter 51”, in The Moon and Sixpence, [New York, N.Y.]: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers […], →OCLC

Origin

  1. Frenchbéguin“bonnet”
  2. Englishbéguin

Colloquial French béguin (“bonnet”). The verb embéguiner (“to wear a bonnet”) came to mean ‘to have a crush on someone’. The word itself came from beguine (lay nuns who typically wore such bonnets).

More words from French

Full word history & related roots →

Translations

Russian стра́сть
  • стра́сть (strástʹ)an infatuation or fancy
Cite this entry
APA

béguin. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/b%C3%A9guin

MLA

“béguin.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/b%C3%A9guin. Accessed November 5, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “béguin,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/b%C3%A9guin.

Source: béguin on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.