1word1day | (no subject)

Howdy all! Things I have learned this week: Five day weekends are awesome, the looming 27th birthday is fine until someone reminds you that it's officially "late twenties," and there are some really disturbing words out there. Namely..

Tricoteuse [trikotœz // tri-ko-tyoos]
noun

A woman who knits; specifically to women who, during the French Revolution, sat and knitted at meetings of the Convention or at guillotinings.

From the French tricot, knitting, tricoter, to knit.

1830 Hazlitt Life of Napoleon Buonaparte I. vi. 284
It was this [popular fury] that inspired the Furies of the Guillotine, and sat and smiled in the galleries of the Convention with the tricoteuses of Robespierre!

1973 Listener 22 Nov. 727
The wife of the production manager sits sourly knitting on set like a tricoteuse at the guillotine.

I was doing so well until I realised that I really had no idea what to write as a usage example for tricoteuse. Unfortunately I've misplaced my copy of The Scarlet Pimpernel, because I recall that the Pimpernel disguises himself as a wine-selling tricoteuse in order to smuggle aristocrats out of Paris in casks!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Just wait until you're 29 and everyone chuckles when you say you'll turn 30 on your next birthday. Because clearly, only people over 30 ever claim to be turning it!

*sigh*

I love watching for my word each day! Thanks! <3

I turned 27 this year and maintain that I'm still in my mid-twenties!!

Am I just in denial? Possibly, but who cares :)

Gutenberg.org has all your classical needs:

The Scarlet Pimpernel (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/60/60-h/60-h.htm)

"The women who drove the carts usually spent their day on the Place de la Greve, beneath the platform of the guillotine, knitting and gossiping, whilst they watched the rows of tumbrils arriving with the victims the Reign of Terror claimed every day. It was great fun to see the aristos arriving for the reception of Madame la Guillotine, and the places close by the platform were very much sought after. Bibot, during the day, had been on duty on the Place. He recognized most of the old hats, "tricotteuses," as they were called, who sat there and knitted, whilst head after head fell beneath the knife, and they themselves got quite bespattered with the blood of those cursed aristos. "

Madame DeFarge from A Tale of Two Cities by Dickens was a Tricoteuse.

A Tale of Two Cities is one of my favourite books, yet I don't remember this word being used in the novel. (Then again, it's been a few years since I read it.) Madame Defarge is the perfect example of a tricoteuse, though.
Thanks for posting! C:

I had forgotten this awesome word. I must reattach it to my vocabulary.

---L.