flambeau

Hello, you have come here looking for the meaning of the word flambeau. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word flambeau, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say flambeau in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word flambeau you have here. The definition of the word flambeau will help you to be more precise and correct when speaking or writing your texts. Knowing the definition offlambeau, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.

English

Etymology

Borrowed from French flambeau.

Pronunciation

  • (UK) IPA(key): /ˈflambəʊ/, /flamˈbəʊ/

Noun

flambeau (plural flambeaus or flambeaux)

  1. A burning torch, especially one carried in procession.
    • 1837, Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution: A History , volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Chapman and Hall, →OCLC, (please specify the book or page number):
      Saint-Antoine has its cannon pointed (full of grapeshot); thrice applies the lit flambeau; which thrice refuses to catch,—the touchholes are so wetted....
    • 1865, Walt Whitman, “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d”, in Sequel to Drum-Taps: When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d and other poems:
      [] With processions long and winding and the flambeaus of the night, / With the countless torches lit, with the silent sea of faces and the unbared heads, []
    • 1980, Gene Wolfe, chapter XIV, in The Shadow of the Torturer (The Book of the New Sun; 1), New York: Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, pages 131–132:
      There were flambeaux on staggering poles every ten strides or so, and at intervals of about a hundred strides, bartizans whose guardroom windows glared like fireworks clung to the bridge piers.
    • 1982, Lawrence Durrell, Constance (Avignon Quintet), Faber & Faber, published 2004, page 955:
      She walked quietly with apparent composure and lowered head but her pallor betrayed her mortal fear – her skin glowed almost nacrous in the warm rose of the flambeaux.

Translations

See also

French

Etymology

From flambe +‎ -eau.

Noun

flambeau m (plural flambeaux)

  1. torch
  2. candle
  3. candlestick
  4. (metonymically) light, flame as symbolic spirit of something

Derived terms

Descendants

  • Dutch: flambouw
  • Spanish: flambó

References