By Betty Kirkpatrick
Every now and then someone suggests a word to be dealt with in this series of articles and all suggestions are gratefully received. Recently someone suggested the word douce, but I was convinced that I had written about this already. However, an extensive search revealed that I was wrong.
Unless the article has fallen down some electronic black hole, douce has not yet been discussed here. Yet is a well-known word, familiar to many people whose aquaintance with Scots is otherwise sketchy or even non-existent. I now hasten to make amends for its omission.
Douce, with the alternative spelling douse, is pronounced to rhyme with loose. Like many words in both English and Scots, it is derived from French, having its roots in the Old French word dous, modern form doux, feminine form douce. This in turn comes from Latin dulcis.
Dulcis and doux/douce both mean sweet and, when it first came into Scots in the 16th century, douce also meant sweet, in the sense of soft, gentle or pleasant. This meaning has survived to the present day and you can refer to douce breezes on a balmy day. Well, you can if you are living elsewhere in warmer climes. Here, violent gale-force winds rather than douce breezes are the current norm.
Douce in this sense can also be used of people or their way of life. For example, you might talk of a neighbour who was a douce old woman whom everybody loved. However, when used with reference to people nowadays, douce is now more likely to mean sedate, sober or respectable. For example, you might say For years most of the young people have left to go and study or work in the city and, for the most part, the remaining community is douce and rather elderly.
This use of douce can be complimentary or neutral, but douce can be used in a critical or condemnatory way. It depends on your point of view and attitude to life. If you are rather a wild child who loves to paint the town a vivid shade of red then you might well use the word douce critically of someone who likes to stay at home reading a book, and even occasionally going to church.
Douce can also be used to mean neat, tidy or comfortable. This meaning can apply to people and in this context it can also mean rather stout. It can also apply to things. Thus, you can describe someone’s house as douce if the owner has spent time hovering, dusting and decluttering it. I rather think my house does not wholly qualify for the epithet.
Nowadays douce is probably most commonly used of places which are noted for their quietness, sedateness and even lack of progress. Again, this use can reflect a critical attitude. It is not everyone’s idea of a dream holiday to spend it in a douce seaside resort. They would regard it as being stuck in a boring backwater.
I mentioned above that douce is derived from French, but it is not one of those Auld Alliance words which came straight to Scots from France without stopping off in English. Such words include ashet, meaning a large plate for serving meat and the like, and derived from French assiette, a plate.
No, douce did make an appearance in English, but it became obsolete and now just appears occasionally in the north of England. The English were probably glad to get rid of it. They never did have much fondness for the French and Nicolas Sarkozy has further reduced this.
Betty Kirkpatrick is the former editor of several classic reference books, including Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary and Roget’s Thesaurus. She is also the author of several smaller language reference books, including The Usual Suspects and Other Clichés published by Bloomsbury, and a series of Scots titles, including Scottish Words and Phrases, Scottish Quotations, and Great Scots, published by Crombie Jardine.
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