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:
As Bedford conceded, her victories in 1429 on behalf of the dauphin, which finally enabled his coronation, fractured English morale.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 11, 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
In 1338 Humbert, the dauphin, granted a part of the forest of Chamborant to a glass-worker named Guionet on the condition that Guionet should supply him with vessels of glass.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 12, Slice 1 "Gichtel, Johann" to "Glory" by Various
Abbé Edgeworth suggests that France is well supplied with dauphins also.
From Lazarre by Mary Hartwell Catherwood
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
This explains the incredible number of false dauphins who have appeared.'
From Tales for Young and Old by Various
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
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
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.
