I’m making lists of unfamiliar words as I read George Simenon’s 1931 Pietr-le-Letton, the novel debut of the famous commissaire Maigret. Here’s my list for Chapter 12 (La Juive au Revolver) with links to definitions from Linguee and word frequencies from Google Books NGram Viewer.
In this chapter, Maigret gets a report from an underling about Le Letton’s mistress dining with a gun in her purse, broods about being an underappreciated cop, follows Le Letton around town some more, confronts him in his hotel room, and engineers a bluff to convince him he’s been thwarted. This triggers a sudden personality change in Le Letton (aided by several gulps of whiskey), but then the chapter ends (I wonder how you say “cliffhanger” in French?).
The chapter spans 8 pages and contained 22 unfamiliar words, including a few fairly common ones I’m glad to learn. The words are mostly about pursuing, hurrying, and being in pain.
| expression (root) | Frequency in 2010 | Frequency in 1970 | Frequency in 1930 |
|---|---|---|---|
| démarche | 1 in 12,600 | 1 in 30,300 | 1 in 39,300 |
| jurer | 1 in 41,100 | 1 in 37,500 | 1 in 33,900 |
| nerf | 1 in 67,600 | 1 in 66,900 | 1 in 34,200 |
| envergure | 1 in 121,000 | 1 in 162,000 | 1 in 188,000 |
| brusqué | 1 in 122,000 | 1 in 77,700 | 1 in 44,500 |
| acharner | 1 in 170,000 | 1 in 153,000 | 1 in 136,000 |
| crispé | 1 in 172,000 | 1 in 348,000 | 1 in 356,000 |
| péripéties | 1 in 199,000 | 1 in 204,000 | 1 in 202,000 |
| empressait | 1 in 310,000 | 1 in 226,000 | 1 in 165,000 |
| voûté | 1 in 311,000 | 1 in 272,000 | 1 in 242,000 |
| tressaillir | 1 in 313,000 | 1 in 374,000 | 1 in 249,000 |
| grès | 1 in 315,000 | 1 in 68,000 | 1 in 54,100 |
| verrou | 1 in 350,000 | 1 in 498,000 | 1 in 472,000 |
| frêle | 1 in 351,000 | 1 in 371,000 | 1 in 287,000 |
| saccadé | 1 in 426,000 | 1 in 554,000 | 1 in 465,000 |
| crouler | 1 in 749,000 | 1 in 647,000 | 1 in 488,000 |
| guéridon | 1 in 1,070,000 | 1 in 1,100,000 | 1 in 906,000 |
| envenimer | 1 in 1,070,000 | 1 in 955,000 | 1 in 854,000 |
| dard | 1 in 1,260,000 | 1 in 952,000 | 1 in 808,000 |
| inusité | 1 in 1,300,000 | 1 in 758,000 | 1 in 591,000 |
| califourchon | 1 in 1,580,000 | 1 in 2,480,000 | 1 in 2,400,000 |
| porte-tambour | 1 in 69,000,000 | 1 in 159,000,000 | 1 in 363,000,000 |
Word notes
- péripéties is “adventures”. I learned the related word périple (“journey”) to describe a car trip I took last January from Paris to Marseille by way of several cities along the western and southern edges of France.
- envergure is “scale” or “magnitude”. It can be used whether the value is small or large, but is more common with large. Maigret chases des malfaiteurs d’envergure.
- crispé (“tense” or “uptight”) and saccadé (“jerky”) are past participles that occur as adjectives far more than as verbs. Crisper and saccader do exist, though.
- verrou is “a lock”, “a latch”, or “a bolt”. But the expression sous les verrous is used for jailed persons, akin to “under lock and key” or “behind bars”.
- envenimer means “to poison” or “to aggravate”. But reflexively, s’envenimer means “to fester”.
- inusité means “unusual”. It was less unusual to see it in 1930.
- califourchon is “straddling”, to describe a way of sitting on a saddle or on a chair. But acces à califourchon means “piggybacking” or “tailgating”, meaning a second person sneaking in without payment or authorization behind a legitimate entrant.
- porte-tambour is a revolving door, or literally a “drum door”. The door itself was invented in 1888 for use in skyscrapers. The French name for it underwent a mild shift over time. Even in 1930, it was more common to write porte à tambour; dropping the hyphen was less common. But around 2000 the gap between these formulations became far sharper (see graph), and now porte à tambour seems standard. Note the stated frequency of 1 in 69 million is not comparable the other words in this list because it concerns a multi-word phrase; NGram Viewer handles phrases differently from single words.
Common words, uncommon meanings
- jurer typically means “to swear” or “to curse”, which I knew. But in the expression jurer dans it means “to clash with”: C’était un sac de voyage vulgaire, qui valait tout au plus une centaine de francs et qui jurait dans ce décor.
- une démarche usually means an “action” or an “undertaking”, but it can also mean “gait”, i.e. the way someone walks. The word is quite common, but wasn’t familiar to me in any of its meanings.