dauphin
Americannoun
-
dauphins
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of dauphin
1475–85; < French; Middle French dalphin, after Dauphiné ( def. ), from an agreement to thus honor the province after its cession to France
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
In the course of his travels, he heard John Calvin speak, had his horoscope read by Nostradamus and witnessed the French dauphin toss a small dog out of a high window.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 26, 2026
All this may have begun with Doctorow’s Daniel, a dauphin of radical history, as anointed as he is tormented.
From The New Yorker ● Apr. 29, 2019
Mr Kim’s father, Kim Jong Il, was crowned as dauphin to his own father, Kim Il Sung, the country’s founding leader.
From Economist ● Apr. 28, 2016
I have been asked whether I wish to nominate a successor, an inheritor, a dauphin or delfino.
From The Guardian ● Aug. 14, 2015
Rescued by the dauphin Charles, he was appointed chancellor of France on the 3rd of February 1422.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 12, Slice 3 "Gordon, Lord George" to "Grasses" by Various
In 1232 the county of the Embrunais passed by marriage to the dauphins of Viennois.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 9, Slice 3 "Electrostatics" to "Engis" by Various
They are brought up like young dauphins, and tossed into the costly whirl to float as best they can—on nothing.
From Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida Selected from the Works of Ouida by Ouida
A certain Joseph Paulin figured in it—a strange person, who boasted of having received the son of Louis XVI at the door of the temple and, for this reason, was a partisan of two dauphins.
From The House of the Combrays by G. Le Notre
From that time the eldest sons of the kings of France were always either actual or titular dauphins of the Viennois.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 9 "Dagupan" to "David" by Various
It has thus been conjectured by some that the dauphins of Vienne derived their title from Teutonic sources through Germany.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 9 "Dagupan" to "David" by Various
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
