pique-devant – English noun declension

English noun forms of pique-devant

Noun: pique-devant
Singularpique-devant
Pluralpique-devants

Sample Sentences

  • Neither will I meddle with our varietie of beards, of which some are shauen from the chin like those of Turks, not a few cut short like to the beard of marques Otto, some made round like a rubbing brush, other with a pique de vant (O fine fashion!) or now and then suffered to grow long, the barbers being growen to be so cunning in this behalfe as the tailors. [1587, Raphael Holinshed et al., Holinshed’s Chronicle, London: Henry Denham, Book 2, Chapter 7, p. 172:]
  • twice double his Patrimonie hath he spent in carefull cherishing & preseruing his pickerdeuant [1596, Thomas Nashe, Have with You to Saffron-Walden, London: John Danter:]
  • Wag[ner]. Sirra boy, come hither.
  • Clo[wn]. How, boy? swowns boy, I hope you haue séene many boyes with such pickadevaunts as I haue. [1604, Christopher Marlowe, The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, London: Thomas Bushell:]
  • I have seene the Cavalier you have so often spoken of, and I thinke you judge verie rightlie of him. Hee consists wholly of a Pickedevant [in the French original: la pointe de sa barbe], and two Mustachoes: and therefore utterly to defeate him, there needes but three clippes of a paire of Cizers. [1638, Richard Baker, transl., New Epistles of Mounsieur de Balzac […] Being the second and third volumes, London: Fra. Eglesfield, John Crooke, and Rich. Serger, Letter 51, p. 108:]
  • In the Sinister Chief is set another sort of a full Face with a sharp pointed Beard, and is termed in Blazon, a Mans face with a Pick-a-devant, (or sharp pointed) Beard. [1688, Randle Holme III, The Academy of Armory, Chester, Book 2, p. 389:]

Etymology

Probably coined in England, from French pique (“pike, spade (cards)”) or piquer (“to prick”) + devant (“in front”) See: French Nouns 'pique'.