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
During the outbreak of 1711 alone, smallpox killed the Holy Roman emperor Joseph I; three siblings of the future Holy Roman emperor Francis I; and the heir to the French throne, the grand dauphin Louis.
From New York Times ● Apr. 27, 2021
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
She was already in her 50s, but I remember thinking that she seemed like a little dauphin prince, dwarfed by the gilt grandeur of her private apartment.
From The Guardian ● Sep. 14, 2017
Among the monuments is one in black marble to the dauphin Joachim, son of Louis XI., who died in 1460.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 12, Slice 7 "Gyantse" to "Hallel" by Various
"If he had brothers were they dauphins too?"
From Lazarre by Mary Hartwell Catherwood
This explains the incredible number of false dauphins who have appeared.'
From Tales for Young and Old by Various
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
It was in the Castle of Vizille, a former residence of the dauphins, that the three orders of Dauphiny met, closely united together in wise and patriotic accord.
From A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times, Volume 6 by Robert Black
You observed his majesty could not pension a helpless idiot without encouraging dauphins.
From Lazarre by Mary Hartwell Catherwood
Random Word
Spin the wheel and learn a new word!
Get a wordDefinitions 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.
