Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The condition of being plump; stoutness.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Exaggerated plumpness; rotundity of figure; stoutness: a euphemism for fatness or fleshiness.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Plumpness of person; -- said especially of persons somewhat corpulent.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Plumpness, stoutness, especially when voluptuous.
  • adjective Plump, chubby, buxom.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the bodily property of being well rounded
  • adjective sufficiently fat so as to have a pleasing fullness of figure

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French, from en bon point, in good condition : en, in (from Latin in; see in–) + bon, good (from Old French; see boon) + point, situation, condition; see point.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French embonpoint.

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Examples

  • And it is weird to get off a boring old commuter train to be faced on the platform with a vast embonpoint, half swathed in shiny scarlet shantung silk, half exposed, like being attacked by a giant blancmange with strawberries.

    Simon Hoggart's week: Olympic chiefs have built a Brigadoon for the rich 2011

  • And it is weird to get off a boring old commuter train to be faced on the platform with a vast embonpoint, half swathed in shiny scarlet shantung silk, half exposed, like being attacked by a giant blancmange with strawberries.

    Simon Hoggart's week: Olympic chiefs have built a Brigadoon for the rich 2011

  • The begatting has begun and poor old Emma is becoming "exceeding embonpoint" to say nothing of feeling as sick as a dog and must have put a brave face on it all as she suffered the vagaries of trans-European travel a la 1790's.

    65 entries from December 2006 2006

  • It went down soft pulpy, slushy, oozy—all its delicious embonpoint melted down my throat like a large beatified Strawberry.

    The Fruit Hunters Adam Leith Gollner 2008

  • The begatting has begun and poor old Emma is becoming "exceeding embonpoint" to say nothing of feeling as sick as a dog and must have put a brave face on it all as she suffered the vagaries of trans-European travel a la 1790's.

    Emma Hamilton update...WARNING:SPOILERS! 2006

  • It went down soft pulpy, slushy, oozy—all its delicious embonpoint melted down my throat like a large beatified Strawberry.

    The Fruit Hunters Adam Leith Gollner 2008

  • It went down soft pulpy, slushy, oozy—all its delicious embonpoint melted down my throat like a large beatified Strawberry.

    The Fruit Hunters Adam Leith Gollner 2008

  • The maid for me is young brunette embonpoint-scant.

    The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night 2006

  • The begatting has begun and poor old Emma is becoming "exceeding embonpoint" to say nothing of feeling as sick as a dog and must have put a brave face on it all as she suffered the vagaries of trans-European travel a la 1790's.

    Emma Hamilton update...WARNING:SPOILERS! 2006

  • In the athletae, embonpoint, if carried to its utmost limit, is dangerous, for they cannot remain in the same state nor be stationary; and since, then, they can neither remain stationary nor improve, it only remains for them to get worse; for these reasons the embonpoint should be reduced without delay, that the body may again have a commencement of reparation.

    Aphorisms 2007

Comments

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  • NOUN: The condition of being plump; stoutness.

    ETYMOLOGY: French, from en bon point, in good condition : en, in (from Latin in; see in–2) + bon, good (from Old French; see boon2) + point, situation, condition; see point.

    May 15, 2007

  • "Their physical resemblance would have been complete if an elderly embonpoint had not stretched Mrs. Archer’s black brocade, while Miss Archer’s brown and purple poplins hung, as the years went on, more and more slackly on her virgin frame."

    - Edith Wharton, 'The Age of Innocence'.

    September 19, 2009

  • found in H. G. Wells' The Invisible Man

    November 22, 2010

  • "then she goes over the clothes she needs, B said, above all drawers and a corset that fits like a glove, A said, she wants to keep her shape, and says she has too much belly, she ought to give up beer, B recalled, but that embonpoint is by no means Molly's weak point, A said,"

    The House of Ulysses by Julián Ríos, translated by Nick Caistor, p 260

    December 27, 2010

  • From Peter Pan, p. 26: "She was slightly inclined to embonpoint."

    August 19, 2012

  • If she tries the gavotte and finds she can't

    But will turn bright red and heavily pant,

    On the subject of weight

    You should mildly state

    That Madame is admirably embonpoint.

    January 24, 2014

  • I waas amused to find that embonpoint was used in the quoted translation of Hippocrates. How did the Academie Anglaise permit this?

    January 24, 2014