Word.ws English Dictionary

main-gauche

main-gauche noun: a relatively large dagger, especially popular in the 17th century. It was held in the left hand (the non-dominant hand), while the rapier was held in the right. It was mainly used to parry thrusts of the adversary's rapier.

main-gauche: a relatively large dagger, especially popular in the 17th century. It was held in the left hand...
Image: Rama, CC BY-SA 3.0 fr, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

main-gauche

  1. (historical) A relatively large dagger, especially popular in the 17th century. It was held in the left hand (the non-dominant hand), while the rapier was held in the right. It was mainly used to parry thrusts of the adversary's rapier.

Origin of main-gauche

French, left hand.

Questions about main-gauche

What does main-gauche mean?
Main-gauche means a relatively large dagger, especially popular in the 17th century. It was held in the left hand (the non-dominant hand), while the rapier was held in the right. It was mainly used to parry thrusts of the adversary's rapier.
What part of speech is main-gauche?
Main-gauche is a noun.

Words near main-gauche in the dictionary

  1. main-belt
  2. main-belts
  3. main-character syndrome
  4. main-deck
  5. main-decks
  6. main-gauche
  7. main-line
  8. main-mast
  9. main-masts
  10. main-sequence star
  11. main-sequence stars

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: main-gauche (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “main-gauche.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/main-gauche. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.