Log in or Sign up
  1. pied-à-terre love

Definitions

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. A temporary lodging; a lodging or small apartment which one keeps for convenience to use in passing through a town, etc.
  2. n. Mil., a foothold; a place from which to sally forth and upon which to retreat, as in a sortie upon an enemy.

Wiktionary

  1. n. smaller temporary or secondary lodging; a second home
  2. n. house in the city

Etymologies

  1. From French pied-à-terre (literally “foot on ground”) (Wiktionary)

Examples

Sorry, no example sentences found.

Sorry, no related words found. Log in or sign up to add your own.

Lists

These user-created lists contain the word ‘pied-à-terre’.

More lists containing ‘pied-à-terre’

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • bilby Lol Asa. You worked hard on that one. Apr 27, 2008

  • asativum Little known fact: This is actually one of those words the French don't like to admit they borrowed from another language, in this case English. It comes from "pie (of) the territory," a Welsh delicacy much like an empanada: minced meat, onion and herbs in a sort of starchy pouch, originally made for shepherds to take with them.

    Anyway, these were a hit with the French for a while in the 18th century, though they they mangled the transliteration (and pronunciation). They functioned as a sort of early take-out food, favored in particular by wealthy merchants and the like visiting Paris. They would take a pied-à-terre back to their apartments, and eventually the term came to refer to the apartments themselves.

    Naturally, the French came up with a dubious back-formation to disguise the foreign derivation. See the work of Prof. Da Nes for more detail.
    Apr 27, 2008

  • dontcry well, from my French, i think it means "foot on the ground, or earth" something like that. Maybe it means "being grounded" thesedays... Apr 27, 2008

Tweets

Looking for tweets for pied-à-terre.

‘pied-à-terre’ has been looked up 1564 times, loved by 1 person, added to 17 lists, commented on 3 times, and is not a valid Scrabble word.