Word of the Day:
pendeloque
What It Means
A drop-shaped diamond or other gem used as a pendant; also, a piece of jewellery in pendant form.
Pendeloque in Context
“"For payment of 3,000 thalers by me due, I have sold to M. de Voltaire, at the price costing by estimation and tax, with 2 per cent for my commission" […] "the following Diamonds, taxed […] as here adjoined; viz."—seven pieces of jewelry, pendeloques, &c., with price affixed, […]”
Did You Know?
Borrowed from French pendeloque (“hanging object; religious medallion, probably in pendant form; jewel hanging from an earring; small crystal piece, especially one hanging from a chandelier”) [and other forms], from Old French pendeloche (“penis”) (apparently a hapax legomenon), from pendeler (“to dangle”) + -oche (suffix forming nouns from verbs), with the ending possibly influenced by breloque (“charm for a bracelet”). Pendeler is derived from pendre (“to hang”) + -eler (frequentative suffix); and pendre from Latin pendere, the present active infinitive of pendeō (“to hang (down)”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *(s)pend- (“to stretch”).
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: pendeloque (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the word and reformatted its meaning, examples and origin.
Cite this entry: “pendeloque.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pendeloque. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.