louche

Borrowed from French louche.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /luːʃ/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /luʃ/

• Audio (RP)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -uːʃ

louche (comparative more louche, superlative most louche)

1. Of questionable taste or morality; decadent.
   • 2012 February 25, “The other half lives: The transatlantic appeal of the British ruling classes”, in The Economist‎, archived from the original on 28 April 2016:

     Upstairs Downstairs hosts the Kennedys and Wallis Simpson (these days, in British culture, the archetypal louche American).

   • 2016 May 23, Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, “Apocalypse pits the strengths of the X-Men series against the weaknesses”, in The A.V. Club‎, archived from the original on 24 May 2016:

     Ever since X-Men: First Class set the series' clock back a few decades and installed Michael Fassbender's moody Magneto and James McAvoy's louche Charles Xavier as replacements for Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart's chess-playing pappies, the big-screen X-Men's central conflict—Xavier's Booker T. Washington-esque School For Gifted Youngsters vs. a rogue's gallery of evil mutants, crew cuts, and politicos—has gotten a lot murkier.

2. Not reputable or decent.
   • 1888, Henry James, “The Aspern Papers”, in The Atlantic Monthly, volume LXI, Boston, Mass.: Atlantic Monthly Co., OCLC 412030383, page 304:

     The aunt will refuse; she will think the whole proceeding very louche!

3. Unconventional and slightly disreputable in an attractive manner; raffish, rakish.
   • 2007 September 9, Guy Trebay, “Who will pull together the collections?”, in The New York Times‎, archived from the original on 3 November 2015:

     Anyone inside the business can also tell you that without Carine Roitfeld's louche sexy styling Tom Ford's Gucci might easily have come off looking like a high-end Club Monaco.

louche (third-person singular simple present louches, present participle louching, simple past and past participle louched)

1. (transitive) To make (an alcoholic beverage, e.g. absinthe or ouzo) cloudy by mixing it with water, due to the presence of anethole. This is known as the ouzo effect.

   Certain anise-flavored drinks have developed a mystique based on the exotic appearance of louching.

   • 2010, Paul Owens; Paul Nathan; Dave Herlong, The Little Green Book of Absinthe: An Essential Companion with Lore, Trivia, and Classic and Contemporary Cocktails, New York, N.Y.: Perigee Books, →ISBN:

     In distillation, the first few liters of absinthe to come out of the still are called the head; the last few liters are the tail. The head and tail don't have enough alcohol to keep the oils in suspension, so the absinthe comes out of the still louched.

   • 2012, Heather E. Hutsell, chapter 1, in Blood Mettle, [s.l.]: Fatty Baby Cat Publishing, →ISBN, page 2:

     I found a little corner to stand in and pretended to sip my own louched absinthe.

   • 2015, Jason Sizemore, For Exposure: The Life and Times of a Small Press Publisher, Lexington, Ky.: Apex Publishers, →ISBN:

     Ah, Mr. Sizemore, the green fairy is best prepared carefully and slowly to appreciate its full potential. Simply fill the fountain with iced water, place your glass of absinthe below the spigot with a single sugar cube placed over a slotted spoon and adjust the tap to your desired flow. The cold water will gradually dissolve the sugar and mix with the absinthe in a process known as louching.

• Ouzo effect on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

• IPA^(key): /luʃ/

From Old French lousche, from Latin lusca, feminine of luscus (“one-eyed”) ( > Old French lois). Compare Italian losco and Portuguese lusco.

louche (plural louches)

1. (dated) cross-eyed
2. (by extension) cloudy; obscure
3. (figuratively) shady; dubious; seedy; shifty

louche f (plural louches)

1. (in a liquid) cloudiness due to a suspension of fine particles

A dialectal (Norman-Picard) form of Old French louce, loce, from Old Frankish *lōtija, from Proto-Germanic *hlōþþijō. Cognate with Dutch loet (“a tool to scrape or shovel”). More at loot.

louche f (plural louches)

1. ladle

Regular conjugation of -er verb loucher

louche

1. first-person singular present indicative of loucher
2. third-person singular present indicative of loucher
3. first-person singular present subjunctive of loucher
4. third-person singular present subjunctive of loucher
5. second-person singular imperative of loucher

• “louche” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).