biche
French
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /biʃ/
Audio: une biche (file)
Etymology 1
From Middle French biche, from Old French biche (“doe, female deer”) and bisse (“wild animal”), of uncertain origin and relation. The form bisse is almost certainly from Vulgar Latin bīstia, variant of Latin bēstia (compare bête); however, the contemporary biche is an enigma, and possibly unrelated. It may be the Picard form of bisse, (compare chent for cent) or may share origin with Middle French bique (“nanny-goat”), believed to be derived from Proto-Germanic *bik (“goat”). More at bouc.
Derived terms
- pied-de-biche (“crowbar”)
Etymology 2
Inflected forms.
Verb
biche
- inflection of bicher:
- first/third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
- second-person singular imperative
Further reading
- “biche” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).
Italian
Middle English
Etymology
From Old English biċċe, from Proto-Germanic *bikjǭ (compare Norwegian bikkja (“dog”), Old Danish bikke), from *bikjaną (“to thrust, attack”) (compare Old Norse bikkja (“plunge into water”), Dutch bikken (“to hack”)). More at bicker.
Noun
biche (plural biches)
Norman
Alternative forms
- bich (Sark)
Pronunciation
Audio (Jersey) (file)
Coordinate terms
- trop-pliein (“drunk man”)
Old French
Rendille
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /bice/
Further reading
- Günther Schlee, Karaba Sahado, Rendille Proverbs in their Social and Legal Context (2002), page 92: biche
- Günther Schlee, Some open problems of Rendille grammar (1978), page 64: biche
- Journal of African Languages and Linguistics, volume 10, page 199: bice
- Harold C Fleming, Baiso and Rendille: Somali Outliers: biče'
- Hans-Jürgen Sasse, The Consonant Phonèmes of Proto-East Cushitic (PEC), A First Approximation, Afroasiatic Linguistics, volume 7, issue 1 (1979)