Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Same as foliot.

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

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Examples

  • Joachim Trier's film is based on the same 1931 French novel by Pierre-Eugène Drieu la Rochelle the complex intellectual and Nazi sympathiser who committed suicide in 1945 that inspired Louis Malle's first fully accomplished film, Le feu follet.

    Oslo, August 31st – review 2011

  • In these particulars she seems to constitute a being of a middle class, between the esprit follet who places its pleasure in misleading and tormenting mortals, and the benevolent Fairy of the East, who uniformly guides, aids, and supports them.

    The Monastery 2008

  • But this is more than atoned for by the admirable part of Madge Wildfire, flitting like a feu follet up and down among the douce Scotch, and the dour rioters.

    The Heart of Mid-Lothian 2007

  • Could I have evoked an esprit follet, at the same time fantastic and interesting, capricious and kind; a sort of wildfire of the elements, bound by no fixed laws, or motives of action; faithful and fond, yet teazing and uncertain — —

    The Fortunes of Nigel 2004

  • She is the _feu follet_, the will-o'-the-wisp that hovers over what is rotten, and dead.

    O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 Various

  • MY DEAR SIR, -- Many thanks for your interesting and kind letter in which you do me the honour to ask my opinion respecting the pedigree of your island goblin, le feu follet Belenger; that opinion I cheerfully give with a premise that it is only an opinion; in hunting for the etymons of these fairy names we can scarcely expect to arrive at anything like certainty.

    George Borrow and His Circle Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of Borrow And His Friends Clement King Shorter 1891

  • It is the name of a species of satyr, or esprit follet, a sort of mountain Puck or hobgoblin, seen among the wilds and mountains, as the old Highlanders believed, sometimes mirthful, sometimes mischievous.

    Life of Johnson Boswell, James, 1740-1795 1887

  • Every midnight, they affirmed, the feu follet came out of the marsh and ran in and out of the rooms, flashing from window to window.

    Old Creole Days 1879

  • Grosse Isle was a strange thing called the rolling muff, that all were afraid of, since to meet it was a warning of trouble; but, like the _feu follet_, it could be driven off by holding a cross toward it or by asking it on what day of the month came Christmas.

    Myths and Legends of Our Own Land — Volume 06 : Central States and Great Lakes 1879

  • She told, too, of the _feu follet_, or will-o'-the-wisp, that led a girl on Grosse Isle to the swamp where her lover was engulfed in mire and enabled her to rescue him.

    Myths and Legends of Our Own Land — Volume 06 : Central States and Great Lakes 1879

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