douceur
Americannoun
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a gratuity; tip.
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a conciliatory gift or bribe.
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Archaic. sweetness or agreeableness.
noun
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a gratuity, tip, or bribe
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sweetness
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of douceur
1350–1400; Middle English < Middle French: sweetness < Late Latin dulcor, with initial syllable reshaped under influence of French doux, douce; see douce, -eur
Explanation
When dining out at a restaurant, one might offer a douceur — a small gratuity, or tip — to help ensure fast seating or good service. More broadly, the term can also serve as a polite euphemism for a bribe. Douceur comes from a Middle French word meaning "sweetness," and you can think of a douceur as something that sweetens a deal. It often refers to an extra payment or gift intended to gain favor or get a better deal. It's a bit of an old-fashioned word that is rarely heard in modern conversation, but you'll find it in classic literature to describe a tactful bribe.
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:
Nonetheless, an otherwise rollicking chapter on the Frankfurt Book Fair gradually saddens into an elegy for the douceur de vivre before the Revolution.
From Washington Post ● Jun. 3, 2015
The collections ranged from 18th-century douceur de vivre to 20th-century avant-garde, prompting the childless Doucet to observe, "I was successively my grandfather, my father, my son, and my grandson."
From Architectural Digest ● Aug. 27, 2014
Thus buttressed by a professional support-group, the bereaved writer projects his or her mask of mourning into the public domain and can expect to be treated with a kind of 19th-century douceur.
From The Guardian ● Aug. 19, 2011
Thinking he was merely angling to raise his price, I pressed a substantial douceur into his hand, and took him by the arm to lead him along.
From The Wine-ghosts of Bremen by Hauff, Wilhelm
The "douceur" of their sweet pitifulness towards him runs like a quivering magnetic current through all the maddest fancies of his wayward imagination.
From Suspended Judgments Essays on Books and Sensations by Powys, John Cowper
His douceurs were nought but such as an artillery marshal might declaim.
From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves" by M.T. Anderson
Allowing for an additional three thousand francs for railway travelling and sundry expenses, I fail to see how the remainder of the sum was disbursed, unless it was in douceurs to the performers.
From An Englishman in Paris Notes and Recollections by Albert D.
When high posts were not sold, they were given as douceurs to men of local influence, whose rebellion was dreaded.
From The Byzantine Empire by Oman, Charles William Chadwick
For he has a large staff to keep up; some few of whom, no doubt, keep themselves by fees and douceurs of various kinds obtained from litigants and others who have business to transact.
From China and the Chinese by Giles, Herbert Allen
These are the douceurs, by which we are invited to regicide fraternity and friendship.
From Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke by Burke, Edmund
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.
