double entendre

See also: double-entendre

English
WOTD – 27 October 2008

Etymology

Pseudo-Gallicism, from French double (“double”) + entendre (“to mean, to understand”). (The phrase is unused and ungrammatical in French. The second word, an infinitive in French, may be a corruption of the noun entente.)

Pronunciation
  • (UK) IPA(key): /dubl ɑ̃tɑ̃ːdɹ/[1]
  • (UK, Anglicised) IPA(key): /dʌbəl ɒnˈtɒndɹə/
  • Audio (US)(file)
  • Audio (AU)(file)

Noun
Examples

After Jeff Bezos publicly accused David Pecker, the owner of American Media, Inc., of “extortion and blackmail”, the New York Post opened with a headline proclaiming, “BEZOS EXPOSES PECKER”. In the US, the word “pecker” is also slang for “penis”.

double entendre (plural double entendres or (nonstandard) double entendre)

  1. (idiomatic) A phrase that has two meanings, especially where one is innocent and literal, the other risqué, bawdy, or ironic; an innuendo.
    • 1812, A treatise on politeness, tr. from the French by a lady, page 172
      Avoid all equivocal expressions, usually denominated double entendre; they are certain proofs of a mean and indelicate mind.
    • 1891, Paulist Fathers, Catholic World, page 785:
      It is a momentous crusade without the cross; and an insidious one, for the calumnies and double entendre against the church are well wrapped up and keenly distributed.
    • 2000, James P. Lantolf, Sociocultural Theory and Second Language Learning, page 126:
      It is not only the teacher's play with single words, phrases, and double entendre that are common in my classroom data.

Translations

References
  1. “double entendre” listed in the Oxford English Dictionary [2nd Ed.; 1989]
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