duc

plural ducs

1. A French duke.

   I had persistently applied myself to learn from the old ducs and duchesses who had been best-informed on the court of their time.

   1963, Louis de Rouvroy, duc de Saint-Simon, translated by Sanche de Gramont, “How Saint-Simon Became Interested in Ducal Dignities (1711)”, in The Age of Magnificence: The Memoirs of the Duc de Saint-Simon, New York, N.Y.: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, →LCCN, part six (Saint-Simon as a Writer), page 294

   5 more examples

   The ambition of modern ducs and duchesses is not to appear as heroes and heroines of historic renown, but to represent gods and goddesses and fairies, buds and blossoms from the garden, starry constellations from the celestial world.

   1868 May, “Our Monthly Gossip”, in Lippincott’s Magazine of Literature, Science and Education, volume I, page 560, column 1

   Ary Scheffer, the drawing-master of the young Orleans princesses, offered to go with Thiers and procure him an audience of the duc or duchesse, or Madame Adélaïde.

   1877 December 15, Emily Crawford, “M. Thiers: A Sketch from Life”, in Littell’s Living Age, volume CXXXV / fifth series, volume XX, number 1748, Boston, Mass.: Littell and Gay, page 679, column 2

   “This is an outrage!” he said, speaking in the justly incensed tone which French ducs always employ when they have had woollen rabbits shot off their heads.

   1932, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, “Hot Water”, in Collier’s, volume 90, page 25

   Princes and princesses, ducs and duchesses were privileged to seat themselves on the traditional tabourets; comtes and comtesses, barons and baronnes, chevaliers and chevalières made do with the lesser pliants.

   1967, Hubert Cole, “King Henry I”, in Christophe: King of Haiti, London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, page 208

   After becoming the familiar of the ducs and duchesses, the comtes and comtesses he would draw upon, splice, and reshape for his epic novel, he withdrew abruptly following the second trial of Alfred Dreyfus in 1899.

   1977, R[ichard] W[arrington] B[aldwin] Lewis, “Within the Tide”, in Edith Wharton: A Biography, New York, N.Y.: Harper Colophon, →ISBN, section V (The War Years: 1913–1918), page 401