noyade

N1O1Y4A1D2E1
UK/nwaˈjaːd/US/nwɑˈjɑd/

noun

A murder by drowning, especially one of those carried out during the French Reign of Terror.

Scrabble 10

Meanings

nounnoyade (plural noyades)

plural noyades

  1. historicalA murder by drowning, especially one of those carried out during the French Reign of Terror.

    By degrees, daylight itself witnesses Noyades: women and men are tied together, feet and feet, hands and hands; and flung in: this they call Mariage Républicain, Republican Marriage.

    1837, Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution: A History […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Chapman and Hall, →OCLC, (please specify the book or page number)
    1 more example

    Alongside this, there were the infamous noyades: perhaps 2,000 alleged counter-revolutionaries strapped in to barges were towed into the river Loire where the barges were scuppered, leaving the victims to drown.

    2002, Colin Jones, The Great Nation, Penguin, published 2003, page 486
verbnoyade (third-person singular simple present noyades, present participle noyading, simple past and past participle noyaded)

present singular third person noyades · participle present noyading · participle past noyaded · past noyaded

  1. historicalnonce wordobsoleteTo murder by drowning, especially during the French Reign of Terror.

Synonyms & antonyms

Also see

Origin

  1. Frenchnoyade
  2. Englishnoyade

From French noyade.

Full word history & related roots →

Rhymes & wordplay

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Cite this entry
APA

noyade. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/noyade

MLA

“noyade.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/noyade. Accessed November 2, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “noyade,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/noyade.

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