trenchant

English

Alternative forms

• trenchaunt (obsolete)

Etymology

Borrowed into Middle English from Old French trenchant, the present participle of trenchier (“to cut”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈtɹɛnʃənt/

• Audio (US)

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Adjective

trenchant (comparative more trenchant, superlative most trenchant)

1. (obsolete) Fitted to trench or cut; gutting; sharp.
   • 1663, Samuel Butler, Hudibras, part 1, canto 1:

     The trenchant blade, Toledo trusty, / For want of fighting was grown rusty, / And ate into itself, for lack / Of somebody to hew and hack.

   1. (zoology, of teeth) Adapted for tearing into flesh.
      • 1971, Thomas H. V. Rich, Deltatheridia, Carnivora, and Condylarthra (Mammalia) of the Early Eocene, Paris Basin, France:

        The trenchant talonid is a character of some miacids and distinguishes these teeth from the hyaenodontids and oxyaenids.

2. (figuratively) Keen; biting; vigorously articulate and effective; severe.

   trenchant wit

   • 1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, , →OCLC, part I, pages 210–211:

     His eyes, of the usual blue, were perhaps remarkably cold, and he certainly could make his glance fall on one as trenchant and heavy as an axe.

   • 2011, Jay A. Gertzman, Bookleggers and Smuthounds: The Trade in Erotica, 1920-1940:

     His trenchant criticisms of the Church's repression […] include a discussion of the considerable 1938 success of the fledgling NODL in getting magazines removed from various points of sale.

Translations

Middle French

Etymology

Old French trenchant.

Noun

trenchant m or f (plural trenchans)

1. sharp

Descendants

• French: tranchant

Old French

Adjective

trenchant m (oblique and nominative feminine singular trenchant or trenchante)

1. sharp; razor sharp

Declension

Verb

trenchant

1. present participle of trenchier