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Thursday word: dégagé
May. 25th, 2017 08:07 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
prettygoodword.livejournal.comdegage or dégagé (day-gah-ZHAY) - adj., free and relaxed in manner; showing a lack of emotional involvement.
Also a technical term in ballet ("a movement in which weight is shifted from one foot to the other in preparation for the execution of a step") but I'm ignoring that. As you might expect, this was adopted from French, in the 1690s in this case, from the past participle of dégager, to release/set free, from Old French desg(u)agier, to redeem a pledge, making it related to the archaic meaning of gage as a pledge -- such as the glove thrown down during a challenge to a duel. Only, of course, in the sense of not having one.
She had a graceful and dégagé manner that was quite winning.
---L.
Also a technical term in ballet ("a movement in which weight is shifted from one foot to the other in preparation for the execution of a step") but I'm ignoring that. As you might expect, this was adopted from French, in the 1690s in this case, from the past participle of dégager, to release/set free, from Old French desg(u)agier, to redeem a pledge, making it related to the archaic meaning of gage as a pledge -- such as the glove thrown down during a challenge to a duel. Only, of course, in the sense of not having one.
She had a graceful and dégagé manner that was quite winning.
---L.
