Definitions
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A temporary lodging; a lodging or small apartment which one keeps for convenience to use in passing through a town, etc.
- n. Mil., a foothold; a place from which to sally forth and upon which to retreat, as in a sortie upon an enemy.
Wiktionary
- n. smaller temporary or secondary lodging; a second home
- n. house in the city
Etymologies
- From French pied-à-terre (literally “foot on ground”) (Wiktionary)
Examples
Sorry, no example sentences found.
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘pied-à-terre’.
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Hyphen Nation
Terms with multiple hyphens, such as rent-a-crowd. Not intended to be a see-how-many-words-one-can-string-together-with-hyphens-used-adjectively sort of list.
much-talked-of, vis-à-vis, tête-à-tête, rope-a-dope, will-o'-the-wisp, dick-a-tuesday, will-in-the-wisp, jack-o'-lantern, jack-with-a-lantern, ear-to-ear, whack-a-mole, no-man's-land and 205 more...
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Words that shouldn't be used on a fir...
probation, trekkie, wart, unemployed, fetish, suspended driver'..., felon, aerophagia, undies, debt collector, girlfriend, boyfriend and 272 more...
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Realia from Everywhere
Culturally defined terms and expressions from the four corners of the world
fjord, mistral steppe, tornado, tsunami, polder, kiwi, koala, sequoia, Abominable Snowman, paprika, spaghetti, empanada and 299 more...
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Place to stay
dwelling, residence, home, house, lodging, diggings, digs, flat, room, apartment, hermitage, abode and 4 more...
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♥
ambrosia, inamorata, gossamer, lily-white, hummingbird, roucoulement, poppy, daisy, calypso, lunula, lamb, dove and 1526 more...
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apjoseph's words
insurmountable, ubiquitous, unequivocal, incumbent, asinine, amenable, sycophants, precarious, malevolent, gregarious, raison detra, nefarious and 200 more...
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JLaughWork's Words
sesquipedalian, perspicacity, fervid, onomatopoeia, eschatology, prognostication, pedagogue, expiation, integrity, metamorphosis, supercilious, xenophilia and 229 more...
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learning
A list of words whose meanings I am learning, either because a) I don't know the meaning b) I know the meaning, but could stand to better appreciate certain inflections or secondary meanings or c) ...
louche, educe, loam, cob, sclerotic, palliate, axial, syndicalist, ecumenical, sally, fatuous, parvenu and 1381 more...
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conglomeration
wherewithal, wan, zoonotic, zoonosis, nebulous, nefarious, nascent, quiescent, quell, undercroft, unwitting, unutterable and 658 more...
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2008 Wordlist
Hopefully, I'll be using this site for more than one year. It will be fun then to look back and see what new words I found worthy of notice in any given year.
All words spotted in 2008...longanimity, permalancer, breeder, biodegradable, handicapable, gender-neutral, translator, interpreter, translation, interpreting, kleptocracy, fanfiction and 1598 more...
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Dictionary.com Words of the Days of 2001
1999 · 2000 · 2001 · 2002 · 2003 · 2004 · 2005 · 2006 · 2007 · 2008
acclimate, stentorian, expeditious, proselytize, equable, sacrosanct, indefatigable, gravid, hyperbole, funereal, flibbertigibbet, vet and 353 more...
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From the Vault
Before there was Wordie, there was... Notepad. Last night I fired up my old laptop for the first time in a couple years. It was a trip down memory lane, for I discovered that this machine (once pre...
aglet, akimbo, callipygian, defenestration, dulcet, exsanguinate, floccinaucinihili..., gadfly, omphaloskepsis, solipsism, souse, verisimilitude and 40 more...
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foreign
demitasse, apéritif, joie de vivre, sui generis, weltschmerz, weltanschauung, l'esprit de l'esc..., magnum opus, paterfamilias, idée fixe, saudade, gestalt and 62 more...
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Les mots emprunté
sangfroid, frontispiece, abatis, abattoir, accoutrement, adroit, depliage, deracinate, deshabille, dirigisme, distrait, douceur and 52 more...
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Nick's Words
Words I often can't recall when I need to use them. Plus some interesting words I like.
paranoid, ineffable, syncopated, authenticity, euphemism, profundity, ambiguous, consequential, contingent, apropos, veg-eatables, autoantonym and 56 more...
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la baguette
bête noire, l'esprit d'escalier, noblesse oblige, cause célèbre, coup de grâce, belle époque, carte blanche, de rigueur, outré, sang-froid, force majeure, enfant terrible and 44 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for pied-à-terre.

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