Word.ws English Dictionary

noyau

noyau noun: a French liqueur made at Poissy in north central France from brandy and flavoured with almonds and the pits of apricots.

Noun

noyau (countable and uncountable, plural noyaus or noyaux)

  1. A French liqueur made at Poissy in north central France from brandy and flavoured with almonds and the pits of apricots.
    • His coffee was excellent, and then came a case of liqueurs, noyau both white and red, etc.1792, James Boswell, in Danziger & Brady (eds.), Boswell: The Great Biographer (Journals 1789–1795), Yale 1989, p. 178
  2. (countable, ethology) A small nucleus or core group of people or animals.
    • Borders are violated by hungering males and famished females, and the ordered animosities of the noyau give way to a saturnalia of sexual adventure.1966 August 26, Richard Ardrey, “Strongest Bond of All - The Space We Own”, in LIFE, page 58
    • The orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus) also exhibits the noyau system and appears to be the only diurnal primate with a largely solitary lifestyle.1999, Ronald M. Nowak, Walker's Primates of the World, JHU Press, →ISBN, page 27

Forms of noyau

pluralnoyaus
pluralnoyaux

Origin of noyau

Borrowed from French noyau, from Middle French noyau, from Old French noel, from either Early Medieval Latin nōdellus (“buckle”) or Late Latin nucālis (“nut-like”). Doublet of newel and noil.

Questions about noyau

What does noyau mean?
Noyau means a French liqueur made at Poissy in north central France from brandy and flavoured with almonds and the pits of apricots.
What part of speech is noyau?
Noyau is a noun.
What is the plural of noyau?
The plural of noyau is noyaus.

Words near noyau in the dictionary

  1. noyan
  2. noyance
  3. noyances
  4. noyans
  5. Noyant-de-Touraine
  6. noyau
  7. noyaus
  8. noyaux
  9. NOYB
  10. Noyce
  11. Noyces

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: noyau (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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